


The Complete Works of William Shakespeare Abridged

by faithfulcat111



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series), Thomas Sanders
Genre: Alcohol, Audience Participation, Bad Accents, Bad rapping, Gen, Incest, Poison Mention, and body horror, bad freud analysis, canibalism, cross-dressing, fake vomit, i'll add tags as I add parts, if you don't get them that is okay, just about anything that is in a Shakespeare play is mentioned in here, just keep going, kinda virgin joke but not really, lots of sexual metaphors, mention of hitler and world war 2, mention of rape, people fake die by sword and dagger, so just to be warned, the sides put on a comedy, you'll be fine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-10
Updated: 2018-06-04
Packaged: 2019-05-04 23:01:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 25,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14603631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faithfulcat111/pseuds/faithfulcat111
Summary: Roman thinks the four of them can perform all 37 plays in an hour and a half. It doesn't end well.





	1. Preface and Biography

**Author's Note:**

> To be honest this was just something my brain thought up in a half-muddled state this morning and I thought was freaking hilarious. And other people on Tumblr did too. I hope this goes over as well as I would like. There is a lot of dialogue because I'm pulling everything from an actual play that my school put on, which is a version of this show. (I say version because it is very improv-heavy) I will try to add tags as we go, but if anything in any of Shakespeare's plays triggers you, it will eventually be mentioned here. So please heed any warnings.

A theatre of people surrounding a strangely square stage. The lights darken and the audience hushes, the play is about to begin.

A man wearing a purple t-shirt and a pair of strange Shakespearean pants over pink tights places a podium on the stage but quickly sits on a stool next to the audience. Another man wearing a black t-shirt, his own pair of Shakespearean pants over blue tights, and a messenger bag walks onto the stage, “Hello and welcome to this performance of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare Abridged. I have just a few brief announcements before we get underway. The use of flash photography or any recording of this show is strictly prohibited. If you have a phone, please take a moment to silent it. And if you have a pager, you need to get yourself a mobile phone. For your convenience, toilets are located in the bathroom. Please take a moment now to locate the nearest exit.” At this, he took a moment to point out the exits located on opposite sides of the room, much like a flight attendant on an airplane. “Should the theatre experience a sudden loss of pressure, oxygen masks will drop automatically,” at this he pulled his own oxygen mask out of the messenger bag. “Just place it over your head like so,” he demonstrated and continued to talk through the mask, “and continue to breathe normally.” He then took the mask and the bag and dropped them off the side of the stage as he continued, “If you are at the theatre with a small child, please place your own mask on first and let the little bugger fend for himself. Allow me to introduce myself, my name is Logan Sanders and it gives me great pleasure to announce that we are about to attempt a feat that we believe to be unprecedented in the history of civilization. That is, to capture in a single theatrical experience, the magic, the genius, the towering grandeur of,” at this, he walked over to the podium and lifted the book on it above his head, “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare.” 

He shut the book and turned to continue talking to his audience as the man in the purple shirt came up to remove the podium, “Now this book weighs about six pounds and we only have an hour and a half so that means we have to get through about eight ounces every seven seconds. That’s like two six-packs a minute. So you better start drinking. And no one knows more about Shakespeare, or alcohol, than the man that I’m about to introduce. One of the world’s most pre-eminent Shakespearean scholars, he has a certificate of completion from Pre-eminent Shakespearean Scholars Dot Com. He is here tonight to present The Complete Works of William Shakespeare with a much-needed preface. Please join me in welcoming Mr. Roman Sanders!”

“Bob, can I get my theme music?” The Space Jam theme started blasting through the overhead speakers as a man burst from behind the curtains behind the purple-shirted man, nearly scaring him off his stool. He was wearing a red shirt, Shakespearean pants, and gold tights with a baseball cap that said Pre-eminent Shakespearean Scholars on it. He started dancing around the edge of the stage, clapping, high-fiving the audience, getting the audience pumped up. As the music began to die down, he jumped up on stage to join Logan. They did the double cheek kiss before Roman shoved Logan out of the way and began to speak, “Thank you, Logan. And greetings guys, gals, and non-binary pals! William Shakespeare. Playwright. Poet. Actor! Stratford's finest flower transplanted in the heart of the English countryside. Avast in the warmth of London’s literary loins. A man, who despite the ravage of male-pattern baldness, was able to plant the potent seed of his poetic genius in the fertile womb of Elizabeth’s England. There, it took root and spread through the lymphatic system of western civilization until it became the oozing knowledge that grows even today on the very tip of our collective consciousness. Yet, how much do we intellectually classic members of the 21st century appreciate the plump fruit of Shakespeare’s productive loins?”

“How much?” Logan spoke up from his corner of the stage where he had been watching Roman.

“Let’s find out, shall we! Bob, can I get some house lights?” Roman clapped his hands as the lights of the theatre came up to reveal the audience. “Now you are a theatre-going audience, obviously of above-average intelligence. But if I could have just a brief show of hands, how many of you have read or seen anything by Shakespeare? Any contact with the bard whatsoever.” His eyes widened as nearly every hand in the theatre went up. He turned towards Logan, who was facing the audience on the opposite side from Roman, and hissed in a stage whisper, “Dude! We’re screwed!”

Logan turned towards him, his eyes wide in shock to match Roman’s, his voice also in a stage whisper, “What?”

“I think they know more than we do!”

Logan looked around again before turning back to Roman, “But you’re an eminent Shakespearean scholar!”

“No!” Roman argued, “I’m PRE-eminent!”

“So be pre-eminent!” Logan turned back to the audience with a nervous smile.

“Be pre-eminent,” Roman mocked Logan before turning back to his half and asking again, “Okay, how many of you have read All’s Well That Ends Well?” This time only about a quarter of the audience’s hands went up. Logan and Roman turned towards each other again, this time with Roman whispering, “This is going to end well.” Roman turned back towards the audience and asked again, “Let’s see if there are any super-eminent Shakespearean scholars in the crowd tonight. Has anyone read King John?” This time only a few hands went up. He pointed at the first hand, “Read it, watched it?”

“Read it,” the audience member answered. 

Roman turned to the second audience member, “Read it, watched it?”

“Both,” this audience member answered.

Roman gave an impressed nod before turning to the last audience member, “Read it, watched it?”

“I downloaded it,” this third audience member in a blue shirt and khakis answered. 

Roman burst out laughing, “Downloaded it? So that’s what the kids are calling it these days.” He turned back to this last audience member, “Would you mind telling us what it’s about?”

“Well,” the man reached up to scratch the back of his neck in nervousness, “it is about a hunchback who-”

“Woah Woah, let me stop you right there before you embarrass yourself. Audience, King John is not about a hunchback. As any pre-eminent scholar can tell you, King John is about a king named John.” Roman turned back to the audience member and stepped off the stage to stand next to him, pulling the audience member to his feet, “Would you stand here with me, please? Audience,  _ ecce hommo.” _

“Excuse me,” the audience member stepped out from where Roman had his arm draped around his shoulders. 

Roman looked at him for a moment before realization hit him, “No sorry. Judging by your obvious lack of fluency in Latin, I can assume that you have not matriculated.”

“Well,” the man brought his hand up to scratch the back his neck again, looking around the room nervously, “not today.”

Roman shook his head with a quiet, “Come with me,” leading the poor audience member on stage. “Take a look at this man before you,” he says to the audience, moving the audience member around so that people on all sides of the stage could see him. “He has been abandoned by our public schools. He is awash in a sea of sexual ambiguity,” at this Roman clutched the man to his chest as his voice started to crack, “Hopped up on empty kilobytes of virtual viagra!” Logan reached out a hand in concern as the man whimpered, staying in his spot on the corner of the stage. Suddenly, Roman shoved the man away, back towards Logan, where he caught him with one arm, the other still holding the bard’s book. Roman pointed out towards the audience, shouting, “Now look at the person sitting next to you! Look at them! Do you recognize that same vacant expression? The same pores clogged with the acne of intellectual immaturity? Or do you see- keep looking! Do you see a desperate plea for literary salvation?”

The audience member started to edge towards his seat with a quiet, “Can I sit down now?”

Roman’s eyes were wide, staring at him, “No. You stand there as a symbol of a society whose ability to comprehend much less intake the genius of William Shatner- Shakespeare!” He paused for a breath before continuing, “Shakespeare that has systematically sodomized by soap operas, reaped by reality shows, and violently violated by the women of the few.” At the last few words, his voice finally cracked as he hugged the audience member, sniffing. 

The audience member awkwardly lifted up a hand to pat his back with a quiet, “It’ll be okay.”

Roman nodded as he pulled back and guided the audience member to the edge of the stage, “Thank you, I needed that.” He then turned back to the rest of the audience as the audience member finally sat down, “Audience, I say onto you! Cast off the cheap cartoons of now for the splendor of the sonnet. Exchange the isolation of the iPod for the illustrious idols of iambic. Imagine a world where manly men can wear pink tights with pride!”

“Hallelujah!” Logan joined in.

“Amen!” the man from the stool in pink tights called out.

Roman stared at him for a second before shaking his head gently, causing the man to snort at him. Roman turned back to his audience, “This is my dream. Where this book-” he dramatically gestured towards Logan, who looked down at the book in his arms and quickly brought it up above his head- “will be on every hotel nightstand in the country. I invite you now to open your hearts, and your wallets-” Roman suddenly pulled his hat off and jumped off the stage, handing it to the nearest audience member. 

Logan quickly rushed off after him, taking the hat back and putting it on his own head as he quickly joined Roman back on stage where he had started shouting again, “-join us on this Shakespearean journey! Can I get an amen!” The audience obliged as Roman dramatically placed a hand on his chest, “Thank you. Thank you. Now on with the show,” he lifted his hand up in the Vulcan salute, “and may the Bard be with you.” He walked off the stage, disappearing once again behind the curtains. 

This left Logan staring after him in slight bafflement before turning back to the audience with a nervous smile, “Those of you who own a copy of this book know that no collection is complete without a brief biography of the life of William Shakespeare. And to perform that portion of the show is the fourth member of our troupe. Please welcome to the stage,” Logan suddenly ran off the stage to grab the audience member from earlier, “Mr. Patton Sanders!” 

Patton ran up onto the stage as Logan took his place in the audience, “Ha! I fooled you all! Y’all thought I was some poor, unsuspecting audience member. Or that I read King John. Neither of which are true.” He pulled a set of flashcards out of his pocket, “But I was googling Shakespeare and I found some really cool stuff. Ahem, hahaha you got punked, okay here we go. William Shakespeare was born in the year 1564 in the town Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire.” He moved to the next flashcard, “The third of eight children, he was the eldest son of John Shakespeare, a local farmer merchant, and Mary Arden, daughter of a Roman,” Patton paused in his pacing across the stage as he looks confused at his flashcards. He looked at the back before checking the next one and he laughed with a relieved smile, “Catholic member. It was on the next card. In 1582, he married a farmer’s daughter by the name of Anne Hathaway.” 

He gasped in delight as he looked up at Logan who shook his head, “Different Anne Hathaway.”

“I love her,” Patton said, regardless. “The Princess Bride was so good. Star of my childhood.” He looked back down at his flashcards, flipping to the next one as he continued, “Shakespeare arrived in London in 1588. There he dictated to his secretary, Rudolf Heß, the work, Mein Kampf,-” Patton’s voice lowered as he looked around nervously at the chuckling audience, “-in which he set forth his program for the restoration of Germany to a dominant position in Europe.” He scratched at his neck, his old nervous habit returning, as the audience full-out laughed, “I-i didn’t know that either.” He flipped his flashcard and continued to read as Logan looked more and more like he wanted to die right then and there. “After reoccupying the Rhineland zone and annexing Austria, Sudetenland, and the remainder of Czechoslovakia,” he flipped to the next notecard, “Shakespeare invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, thus precipitating World War 2. I didn’t know that.” He gave the audience another shaky smile as he quickly hurried across the stage again, flipping to the next flashcard, “Shakespeare remained in Berlin when the Russians invaded the city and committed suicide with his mistress, Eva Braun. He lies buried in the church of Stratford-” Patton flipped to the next flashcard, “-though his head is in a holding tank in Glendale, California. Thank you.”

Logan quickly rushed on stage and pushed Patton in the direction of where Roman went, where he quickly disappeared behind the curtains too, “Audience, we are proud to prevent,” he paused for a second before shaking his head and continuing, “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare!” He quickly ran off stage, pushing the purple-shirted one off his stool with a quick, “Get up there now Virgil,” and disappearing behind the curtain as the lights went back down to just focus on the stage. 


	2. Romeo and Juliet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roman and Patton try to put on Romeo and Juliet with Virgil narrating. There are costume issues and way too much death.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: fake vomit, fake deaths, way too many sexual metaphors, there is a joke about a virgin but not really, remember they are putting on a Shakespeare play. If you can't read Romeo and Juliet for any reason, don't read this  
> Also, like I stated before, I am basing this off the version my school put on and both Romeo and Juliet were played by girls so I had to change a few jokes. Also, the audience flirting totally happened and I wrote that part based on one night in particular which was amazing.  
> One more thing to note is that although I have broken these into chapters, the chapters flow one right into another. So this is just seconds after the first chapter. Enjoy!

Virgil quickly hopped up to the middle of the stage and began rambling to the audience, “All the world’s a stage! All the people in it merely players. Each have their exits and their entrances and one man in his time may play many parts. How many parts to be exact? Well, according to my computations, there are 1,122 roles in all of Shakespeare’s plays. Way too many. Take, for example, his most famous play, Romeo and Juliet. Two star-crossed lovers, a meddling nurse, a sympathetic priest, vital to the story. But Lady Capulet, Mercutio, many others, unsightly stains on Shakespeare’s otherwise muscular body of work. Like boom, they are gone. So let us begin our journey through Shakespeare’s works with the gross, underage flesh of Romeo and Juliet. Prologue!”

Virgil quickly hopped off the stage to return to his stool. Patton, now dressed in a blue shirt, Shakespearean pants, and grey tights, and Roman emerged from opposite sides of the curtains and marched forward to stand on the stage, facing opposite sides of the audience. They recited in unison, “Two households, both alike in dignity, in fair Verona where we lay our scene. From ancient grudge break to new mutiny where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.” The two each reached behind themselves to grab each other's hands to hop at a 90-degree angle to face the other two sides of the audience. “For from the fatal loins of these two foes, a pair of star-crossed lovers do take their lives,” both mimik stabbing themselves, making over-exaggerated death sounds as they fall slightly back on each other. “Whose misadventured piteous overthrow, doth with their death bury their parents’ strife.” The two turn towards each other briefly, Patton applauding while Roman bows, before hurrying back off in the directions they came from.

Virgil quickly hops back on stage with more narration, “Now guys, gals, and non-binary pals, two men in search of stupidity. For the Capulets,-” he gestures to wear Roman reenters, wearing a long blue coat over his clothes, “-Samson!. For the Montagues,-” he gestures to the other side where Patton enters, a long, red vest placed strangely on his head, “-Benvolio!”

“I am the great Cornholio!” Patton shouts.

Roman slaps one hand over his mouth as he tries not to burst out laughing. Virgil just says, “Um, Shakespeare, Patton. Not TV.”

“Fine,” Patton pulls the vest back down so it sits on him normally.

“Um, Verona’s fragile peace shall be undone and tragedy begin with the biting of a thumb,” Virgil quickly exits the stage back to his stool.

Patton skips forward to lock arms with Roman. The two start a skipping dance-circle, singing, “Oh, I had a little doggy and his name was Mr. Jiggs. I sent him to the grocery store to fetch a pound of figs.” They both abruptly stopped singing as if just realizing who they were with, but kept talking in unison, “Oh it’s him. I hate him. I hate his whole family. I hate his dog. I hate them all.”

“Bite,” this last word was spoken by just Roman and he mimed biting his thumb while facing the opposite way from where Patton was.

Patton turned around with an offended gasp, “Do you bite your thumb at me, sir?”

Roman whipped around to face Patton and they started circling each other on the stage, “No, but I do bite my thumb.”

“But do you bite your thumb at me, sir?” Patton asked again.

“No, I do not bite my thumb at you, sir, but I do bite my thumb. Do you quarrel, sir?” Roman responded.

Patton huffed, “Quarrel, sir? No sir.”

“But if you do sir,” Roman continued, “I am for you sir for I serve a good a man as you.”

“No better?” Patton asked.

“Yes,” Roman dramatically turned back towards Patton, “Better.”

“Gasp,” Patton dramatically turned to face him back, “You lie!”

“Down with the Montagues!” Roman shouted stepping forward.

“Die Capulets!” Patton stepped forward to meet him at center stage.

Suddenly a kazoo sounded. The two’s eyes widened as they spoke, “Oh no! It’s the prince!” They turned to see Virgil walk onto the stage with a sock puppet wearing a little crown on one hand.

They both plopped down as Virgil began to speak out of the side of his mouth as the puppet. “Loyal subjects! Under pain of torture,” at this, he leaned down, having the puppet go eye level with the two on the ground before rising back up to his normal height, “Throw your mistempered weapons to the ground and here the sentence of your moved prince.”

“Moved prince,” Roman mocked.

Virgil whipped the puppets head so it was staring directly at Roman, “You, Montague, come with me.” He reached forward to grab Roman’s ear with the hand the sock puppet was on, pulling him forward. Roman quickly scrambled to his feet muttering “ow” under his breath. Virgil turned back to where Patton was standing up and continued to talk in the puppet’s voice, although he didn’t let go of Roman’s ear, “And you, Capulet, come you this afternoon to know our farther pleasure in this case.”

“With liquor?” Patton called out as Virgil dragged Roman away.

“Come quick!” was Virgil’s last comment before he and Roman disappeared behind the curtains.

“Oh, where is Romeo!” Patton said, pretending to search through the audience. “Saw you him today? Right glad I am that he was not at this play. But see he comes!” Patton made a large, sweeping gesture towards where Roman and Virgil had disappeared.

There was silence for a few seconds before Roman called out, “Just a minute!”

Patton deeply sighed before saying again, “But see he comes!”

“Hold on, costumes are hard!” Roman called out again.

“Roman, but see he comes,” Patton clapped between each word to emphasize his point.

Roman huffed and a second later burst out from behind the curtains, jumping onto the stage in one fluid motion, “But see I come.” He had taken off his long blue coat and replaced it with an oversized white shirt with a huge red vest.

“Morning cuz,” Patton greeted him.

“Ah, is the day so young?” Roman asked, using a stereotypical frat boy voice.

Patton looked down at his wrist, “But struck new nine.”

“Ay me, sad hours seem long,” Roman said.

“What sadness lengthens Romeo’s hours?” Patton asked.

“Not having that which, having, makes them short,” Roman answered.

“In love?”

“Man, out.”

“Out of love?”

“Out of her favour,” Roman plopped down on the stage, “where I am in love.”

“Alas, that love, so gentle in his view, should be so tyrannous and rough in proof!” Patton crouched down next to him.

“Alas, that love, whose view is muffled still, should, without eyes, see pathways to his will!” Roman sighed.

“Go to the feast of Capulet’s. There sups the fair Rosaline whom thou so loves with all the admired beauties of Verona. Go thither, and with unattainted eye, compare her face with some that I shall show, and I will make thee think thy swan a crow,” with the last word, Patton bopped Roman on the nose.

“Man,” Roman sighed, pushing himself back to his feet with Patton following suit, “None fairer than my love.”

“Well, there’s free beer,” Patton suggested.

Roman turned around with a huff, “Have you met me? I’m Romeo. I can get that anywhere.”

“Um,” Patton thought for a second before trying another tactic, “And body shots off Rosaline’s sister.”

Roman smiled and said, “Alright, come on.” The two exited the stage and from the opposite corner, Virgil entered, swinging a cane.

“Now the feast of Capulet is where Romeo shall meet his Juliet. And, in a scene of timeless romance, he’ll try to get into Juliet’s pants,” Virgil quickly exited back to the corner he had come from.

Patton entered onto the stage, this time wearing a blue shirt that was barely attached with velcro in the back and a blue skirt that was much too large over his other clothes. He cleared his throat, before lifting up his skirt and started dancing in circles, singing his own bad song.

Roman hopped back up on the stage and started in his douche Romeo voice, “Oh she doth teach the torches to burn bright. Did my heart know love till now? Forswear it sight. For I never saw true beauty till this night. Girl,” he quickly grabbed Patton’s hand, spinning him around to face him, to which Patton gave him a high-pitched overdramatic gasp, “If I profane with my unworthiest hand this holy shrine, the gentle sin is this: my lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand to smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.”

Patton flattened his hand so it appeared that they were giving each other a prolonged high-five and responded in a falsetto-style voice, “Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much, which mannerly devotion shows in this, for saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch, and palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.”

“Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?” Roman asked.

“Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer,” Patton bopped Roman on the nose again with the last word.

“Then let lips do as hands do,” Roman gestured to his own lips, then their touched hands. He then made forward as if to kiss Patton.

Patton broke their hands apart and pushed Roman away, “Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake.”

“Then move not, while my prayer’s effect I take,” Roman made forward to try and kiss Patton again, but was pushed back again.

“Then have my lips the sin that they have took,” Patton said, this time slightly out of breath.

“Sin from thy lips? O trespass sweetly urged! Give me my sin again,” Roman made forward again.

Patton struggled a little this time, his voice dropping back down to normal, “Roman! I don’t want to kiss you.”

Roman backed off, “Really?”

“I don’t want to do it,” Patton was trying to retighten his skirt which was beginning to fall down.

“Come on, it’s in the script. It will take like two seconds,” Roman made forward again, but this time, Patton fake punched him in the gut with a loud grunt.

Roman back off again before stage whispering, “What was that supposed to do?”

Patton, who was huffing by this time, whispered back, “I punched lower.”

Roman started at him for a second before whispering, “Oh, right!” He fell to the ground as if in agonizing pain, “Oh no!”

“You kiss by the book,” Patton had returned to his falsetto voice. “Coming mother!”

He ran off the stage, grabbing Logan, who was sitting on a stool off the stage. Logan got down on all fours on the stage while Patton did his best to balance, sitting on his back.

In the meantime, Roman stood back up, facing the other way, “Is she a Capulet? Ay, so I fear. The more I- what the hell are you doing?” He had turned to see the other two.

“Th-the balcony scene,” Patton answered, trying his best not to lose his balance.

“Patton, that’s not a balcony,” Roman said, putting one hand to his forehead in exasperation.

“Excuse me, I’m a hefty steed,” Logan spoke up.

Patton gave Roman a weak smile and Roman sighed. “Okay fine,” he sat back down on the ground so he was at a lower eye level than Patton. “But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?”

Patton cleared his throat before starting up in his falsetto voice, “O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?” At this Roman lifted one hand up into Patton’s line of vision, snapped, and pointed down at himself. Patton pointed at him and continued, “Deny thy father and refuse thy name. Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, and I’ll no longer be a Capulet. What’s in a name anyway? A nose by which we call any other name would still smell. Oh Romeo, doff thy name, and for that name, which is no part of thee.” Suddenly, Logan sneezed and as Patton has started waving his arms around wildly and wasn’t holding on, he fell right off Logan and into Roman’s lap, still speaking, although much lower and practically moaning, “Take all myself.”

Roman leaned down and whispered, “Are you alright?”

Logan carefully backed off stage and returned to his stool. Patton nodded, “I think I just need to lie down for a moment.”

“Okay,” Roman carefully shifted Patton off his lap and got up to continue the show, “Ah, my lady, I do believe in thee. Call me but love, and I’ll be new baptized. Henceforth I never will be Romeo.”

Patton, still on the floor, snorted and started laughing, “Roman, what did you say?”

Roman looked down in confusion, “Um, call me but love-” Patton’s laugh got louder, “-and I’ll be new baptized. Henceforth I will- what?”

Patton, between laughs, said, “Call you buttlove!”

Roman looked around in confusion for a second before realization hit him. He crouched down next to Patton and attempted to defend himself, “No. No! Patton! The emphasis is on love!”

“Okay, Buttlove!” Patton was still laughing.

“Okay just get up,” Roman grabbed his hand and forced Patton back to his feet.

Patton recomposed himself and continued, “What name art thou? Art thou, not Romeo and a Montague!”

“Neither, fair maid, if either thee dislike,” Roman answered.

“Dost thou love me then?” Patton leapt forward to hug Roman. “I know thou wilt say ‘ay,’ and I will take thy word.” Patton let go of Roman again and lifted one hand dramatically to his forehead, his skirt slipping down further. “Yet if thou swear’st thou mayst prove false. Oh Romeo, if thou dost love me, pronounce it faithfully!”

“Girl,” Roman lifted one hand up to the sky, “By yonder blessed moon, I-”

“Oh!” Patton interrupted him with the highest pitched sound he could make. His skirt finally gave up and fell down around his ankles. “Swear not by the moon!”

Roman looked Patton up and down as he tried to pull his skirt back up over his pants and tie it again, “What shall I swear by?”

“Um,” Patton looked around the room before pointing at a guy in the front row, “Him.”

Roman pointed at him as well, “That one?” When Patton nodded, he tried again, “Girl, by yonder blessed virgin, I swear-”

“Um, probably not that one,” Patton interrupted him again.

Roman turned back to him again in disbelief, “What now?” He turned back to the guy when Patton pointed again to see him and the guy he was sitting next to leaning their heads together, wiggling their eyebrows at them.

Patton turned away and began again, “Do not swear at all.” Behind him, Roman turned back to the guy and sat down to begin chatting with him. “I have no joy of this contract tonight. It is too rash-” Roman lay in a sideways position, still flirting with the guy, “-too unadvised, too sudden-” the guy turned into a sideways position, laying over the audience members on either side, “-too like the lightning, which doth cease to be. Ere one can say ‘It lightens.’” Roman and the guy both sat back up as Roman began to give him his number. “Sweet, good night.” Patton paused, obviously waiting for Roman. He tried again, “Sweet, good night.” Patton turned to where Roman was still flirting with the guy. “Hey, buttlove.”

Roman suddenly looked back at Patton, turned to the guy to give a quick, “Text me,” and hopped back up onto the stage. “O, wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?”

Patton gestured for Roman to get down on one knee, sat on said knee, and said, one pinky up to the corner of his mouth, “What satisfaction canst thou have tonight?”

The corner of Roman’s mouth twitched up as he tried to muffle his laughter. He rubbed his hands together and then smacked Patton in the back with a loud, “Buttlove!”

Patton yelped as he jumped back up and turned around, “Hey! I am a classy lady! Second base is for second dates!”

Roman got back up with a very insincere, “My bad.”

“Sweet, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow,” Patton started to leave the stage, but turned back to say in his normal voice, “Bye Buttlove!”

Roman sighed as Patton disappeared behind the curtain and turned to see Virgil stepping onto the stage. “And thou Romeo did swoon with love,” Virgil stated as Roman began to overdramatically swoon across the stage. “By cupid’s arrow, he’d been crippled. But Juliet had a loathsome cuz whose loathsome name was Tybalt,” Virgil returned to his stool.

Patton returned to the stage, a large felt blue vest overtop of his resecured Juliet costume. He carried two plastic swords with him and shouted at Roman, “Romeo, the love I bear thee can no longer afford! Thou art a villain! Therefore turn and draw!”

He tossed one of the plastic swords over to Roman who looked down at it for a second before saying to Patton, the sword pointed at him, “Tybalt, I do protest! I have not injured thee, but love thee better than thou canst devise.”

“Thou art a villain,” Patton insisted. “You wretched boy! I am for you!”

Patton took a step towards Roman, but in doing so, Roman’s plastic sword slid between Patton’s arm still trying to keep his skirt up and his torso. “Oh that is bad,” Roman said as they both stared down at the sword.

“Oh, I am slain!” Patton cried out before running off stage with both swords again.

“Oh, I have slain him,” Roman said, very confused at this point, before exiting in the opposite direction.

Virgil stepped onto the stage again. “From Tybalt’s death onwards, the lovers were cursed despite the best efforts of Friar and Nurse. Their fate pursues them, they can’t seem to duck it and I can’t say that on stage,” Virgil trailed off. Logan suddenly walks by the stage, placing a bucket on it before disappearing again. “And by the end of act 5, they’ll both kick the bucket!” Virgil kicks the bucket over before picking it up and following Logan behind the curtains.

Patton enters stage again, having shed the vest and swords and found a toy riding pony. “Coconuts ready?” he calls out, to which the sound of two coconuts being hit together sounds from behind the curtains. He starts galloping in a circle around the stage, “Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds, toward Phoebus' lodging. Come Romeo! Come night! Come civil night!” He pauses for a breath. “Come night night night night night. Come come come come come. And bring me my Romeo!”

Loud sobbing suddenly is heard as Patton puts down his horse. Roman bursts onto the stage, having put on his own oversized brown skirt and shirt. His shirt was not fastened at all, leaving the fake boobs he was wearing around his neck to go flying everywhere as he dramatically tells Patton, “Oh Juliet! What terrible things have happened!”

“Oh it is my nurse,” Patton says. He then leans forward to whisper, “Dude, your boobs.”

Roman looks down to see the state of his costume and does his best to fix it with a hissed, “I told you costumes are hard.” As soon as his shirt was securely closed, he began again, “Oh alak the day! He is gone! He is killed! He is dead!”

“Can heaven be so envious?” Patton tried to match Roman’s dramatics but was unable to reach them at this point.

“Oh, Romeo!” Roman moaned. “Who would have thought it? Romeo!”

Patton gasped, “Hath Romeo slain himself?”

“I saw the wound, I saw it with mine eyes! Here on his manly breast! Tybalt is gone, and Romeo banished. Romeo that killed him, he is banished!” Roman sobbed.

“Did Romeo’s hand shed Tybalt’s blood?” Patton asked.

“It did! It did! Alas, the day, it did!” the two fell sobbing into each other’s arms.

Patton soon stopped though, “Nurse?” Roman kept sobbing and rubbed his nose on Patton’s sleeve, “Nurse?”

Roman finally stepped back with a mournful, “What?” Patton gestured off-stage and Roman sadly murmured, “Oh,” and left stage once again.

As Roman disappeared, Virgil emerged from another corner with a giant cloak, a lightsaber in one hand. He began whispering to audience members, “Hey wanna buy a lightsaber?”

Patton looked around, eventually spotting him, “Virgil?” Virgil ignored him. “Virgil?” Virgil continued attempting to sell his plastic lightsaber. “Obi-wan Kenobi, your stage is now.” At this Virgil stopped and stood straight up, staring at him. “Is that better?” Patton asked. Virgil muttered as he stepped onto the stage, hiding the lightsaber under his cloak. “Oh, Friar Lawrence!” Patton returned to his falsetto voice, although it was noticeably less strong than it was. “Romeo is banished and Tybalt is slain! And I got that not so fresh feeling. Can you help me pretty please?”

Virgil’s other hand emerged from under his cloak, handing a vial over to Patton. He turned away and said, “Take thou this vial, being then in bed, and this distillèd liquor drink thou off.” He turns back towards Patton, who had it tipped back as if downing the whole contents. “Not the whole vial!” he leapt forward, snatching it out of Patton’s hands. Patton took a couple unsteady steps backwards, giggling. “Um, you didn’t get it from me,” Virgil took off behind the curtains.

Patton kept giggling, “Oh my veins run a cold and dry. Obi-wan. Oh!” He perked up, spotting something over the heads of the audience. “Pretty colours!” Patton ran off the stage towards it but stopped short at the front row, suddenly looking very uneasy. He then turned and fake-vomited onto the audience members closest to him and then slowing walked back onto the stage, swaying and coughing as he did. As soon as he reaches centre stage, Patton perked back up with a cheerful, “There! I feel much better!” before collapsing onto his back.

Roman jumps suddenly on stage, back in his Romeo costume, and crouches next to Patton, “Oh no! My love, my wife! Death, that hath sucked the honey of thy breath, yet hath had no power upon thy beauty. Juliet girl, why are you yet so fair?”

Patton suddenly sat up, still giggling, “I don’t know, just lucky I guess.”

“Dude!” Roman hissed, pushing him back down. He pulls out his own vial from beneath his vest, lifting it in the sky, “Here’s to my love!” He fake drinks it and turns to Patton, “Oh true apothecary, thy drugs work quick. And thus with a kiss, I die.”

Patton lifts up one hand, saying, “I just threw up.”

Roman jerks back, slightly revolted, “Um, thus with a fist bump, I die.” The two fist bump and then, Roman lies down next to Patton.

Patton sits up, stretching, “Good morning!” He turns to Roman and gasps, “What’s this? A cup, closed in my true love’s hand? Poison hath been his untimely end. O churl, drunk all, and left no friendly drop to help me after. Then I’ll be brief. Oh happy dagger, this is thy sheath!” Patton reaches into Roman’s vest and pulls out a very small collapsible knife and snorts, “That’s Romeo for you.” He then overdramatically stabs himself with the knife and falls back down.

Virgil steps onto the stage, “Epilogue.” Both Roman and Patton jump to their feet.

Patton pulls a kazoo out and begins to play it as Roman recites, “A glooming peace this morning with it brings. The sun, for sorrow, will not show his head. Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things. Some shall be pardoned, and some punishèd. For never was a story of more woe than this of Juliet and her Romeo.”

All three then say together, “And Romeo and Juliet are dead!”

“Thank you Wimbly and good night,” Patton finishes and the three exit different corners of the stage.


	3. Titus Andronicus/Othello, the Moor of Venice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In their need to go faster, Titus Andronicus is shortened to a cooking show and Othello, a bad rap.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These two plays are probably the worst when it comes to trigger warnings. Sorry.  
> Mentioned body horror, rape, cannibalism. Also really bad rapping and dancing.  
> Also here is the rap being performed if you actually want to see rather than read my horrible attempt at writing it:   
> https://faithfulcat111.tumblr.com/post/173870914225/the-othello-rap-from-my-story-cringe-with-me

After a brief blackout, Logan entered the stage, “They just did Romeo and Juliet in 12 minutes. And at that rate of 12 minutes per show and 37 shows, it will only take us 7 hours. Sh-” Logan covered his mouth with one hand as the realization hit him. “Well, um, we spent way too much time on Romeo and Juliet. But, to be fair, it’s a classic. Unlike our next play which Shakespeare wrote as a 24-year-old starving artist. Basically, he was living off of ramen. It’s no surprise then that food dominated his first tragedy, a revenge drama known as Titus Andronicus. Which we now present as a cooking show.” Logan started off stage, but was stopped from disappearing behind the curtain by Roman, who had put on a black dress, a frilly apron, a wig, and had red socks over both of his hands.

In the meantime, Virgil jumped up onto the stage wearing his own apron, holding a plastic cleaver in one hand and a red sock over the other. “Welcome everyone!” he shouted. “I’m Titus Andronicus! Welcome to Gourmet Homemade! Bam!” he swung his cleaver for added emphasis. “Now, when you’ve had a lousy day: your left hand chopped off, bam! Your sons murdered. Your daughter raped, her tongue cut out, and both her hands chopped off bam bam! The last thing you want to do is cook. Unless you kill the rapist and serve him to his mother at a dinner party! Yeah! My daughter, Lavinia, and I will show you how!” Virgil gestured towards where Roman was holding Logan just off stage and Roman pushed Logan forward so they both stepped onto the stage again. “Good evening Lavinia!”

Roman waved one hand to the audience, “Goo’ eve’ing ev’ybo’y!” He was doing his best to not use his tongue while speaking and maintaining a falsetto, somehow. 

“And how are we feeling today?” Virgil asked.

“No’ so goo’,” Roman shrugged. “I ‘ot my tongue cut out. My han’s chopped off. He ra’ed me. How ‘o you t’ink I feel?”

“Well it’s a pisser,” Virgil threw one arm around Logan’s shoulders, leading him to centre stage. “But we’ll get our revenge now, won’t we?”

“Wooooh!” Roman started circling the two of them, much like a hawk, eyeing Logan the whole time.

“Now hark-stillingon,” Virgil leaned closer to Logan’s ear, keeping the cleaver close to his chest. “We’re going to grind your bones to dust.”

“Woooh!”

“And in that dust, a paste I’ll make.”

“Wooooh!”

“And of that paste a coffin I will rear and make a pastry of your shameful head!” Virgil shouted the last line in one breath as Logan continued to squirm to try to get away from him. Both he and Roman laughed darkly. Virgil waved Roman over with his cleaver, “Lavina, can you receive the blood?” Roman pulled a small plastic cup out of his apron, holding it up to Logan’s chest as Virgil said, “Now first you want to make a nice clean incision over the juggler vein like so.” He carefully dragged the plastic cleaver along Logan’s neck. Virgil let go of Logan, leaving him swaying. Roman tossed the plastic cup aside, picked up Logan fireman-style, and disappeared behind the curtains as Virgil wiped his cleaver on his apron, “Be sure to use a big bowl as the human body has about four quarts of blood in it.” He put the cleaver into a pocket. “And when he’s dead which should be right about-” he snapped his fingers and pointed to where Logan and Roman disappeared. 

“BLAH!” was heard from behind the curtains.

“-Now, you’re gonna ground his bones to powder and in a liquid temperament and bake it at about 350 degrees. 40 minutes later, you’ll have this lovely human head pie,” Virgil gestured towards Roman, who had reentered carrying a pie pan with a plastic skull covered in red paint. “Which I prepared early! I also prepared some ladyfingers for dessert!” Virgil pulled out a bowl of Halloween rubber fingers from under the stage and started around the front row of the audience, “Now who will be the first to try this high protein snack? It’s finger-licking good!” 

Roman, setting down the pie, called out, “Da! Gi’e me a high-fi’e.”

Virgil hopped back onto the stage and they both went for the high-five, but missed. They looked down at their sock-covered hands for a second, then at each other, then back down. “Well,” Virgil stumbled, “It looks like we’re running out of time. Be sure to tune in tomorrow when you see Timon of Athens in a meaty new take on the Greek salad. Say goodnight, Lavina.”

“Goo nigh ev’ybo’y!” Roman enthusiastically waved. 

“Close enough,” Virgil remarked. “Good night everybody!” The two grabbed the bowl and pie pan and disappeared behind the curtains again.

There was a brief blackout before Logan returned to the stage, “Well that was disgusting. But, inexplicably, it was the biggest hit of Shakespeare’s lifetime which allowed Shakespeare to now make it rain and to expand his creative horizons. Compare, for example, the immaturity of Titus Andronicus to the subtle nuance complexities of the human condition as presented in his dark and brooding tragedy, Othello, the Moor of Venice.” The lights lowered to a single spotlight as Logan exited the stage. 

Patton entered from another corner, having put a white turtleneck and a sailor’s cap on, holding two wooden boats. He began, “Speak of me as I am. Let nothing extenuate, of one that loved not wisely, but too well. For never was there a story of more woe than that of Othello and his Desdemono.” He looked down at his boats, shrugged, and stabbed himself in the stomach with both of them. “Oh Dessy!” he cried out before falling down, giving a raspberry as a final death sound.

“Hey, can I get lights?” Roman said, emerging from behind the curtain, back to his original clothes, with Logan. 

The lights came back up as the two stepped onto the stage and Logan asked, “What are you doing there, Patton?”

Patton lifted his boats up, “Othello, the Moor of Venice.”  
“And you’re doing an excellent job,” Logan said sarcastically before turning back to the audience. “Audience, I’m sorry about this. It seems that Patton, secure in the infallibility of the internet, has googled up the word moor and determined it is a place where you tie up boats.”

Patton, who had gotten up, scoffed, “I didn’t google it. I asked Siri.”

Roman stepped forward. He lifted up one finger, “Lose the boats.” He lifted up a second, “Get an Android.”

Patton stepped off stage and disappeared with a simple, “You guys are jerks.”

“Thanks, Patton,” Roman sighed, before scooting up to Logan and stage-whispering, “What’s a moor?”

Logan leaned down to regular whisper, “It means black person.”

“Dude!” Roman smacked Logan in the arm, before turning back to the audience. “As I’m sure you are all aware, moor was traditionally used to refer to someone of African-Italian descent. As such, we will not be performing Othello for you tonight.”

“Wait!” Patton called out, reentering back in his normal outfit, carrying a bundle of Shakespearean hats and sunglasses. “I think there is a way we can still do this. Here take these,” he handed Roman and Logan each a hat and a pair of sunglasses. “It’s a little old-school, but we just got to get a beat going. And it’s totally boatless.” Patton started beatboxing before saying, “Here’s the story of a brother by the name of Othello. He liked white women and he liked green jello.”

“Okay, yeah sure,” Logan agreed, putting on his hat. Roman cocked an eyebrow at him before putting on his own hat. 

“Glad you liked it, I have just the thing. Hit it!” Patton put his sunglasses on as a recording of him beatboxing started to play, the other two following suit. 

Logan started up the rap song, “And a punk named Iago who made himself a menace because he didn’t like Othello, the moor of Venice.”

Patton joined in, “Now Othello got married to Desdemona.”

“But he took off for the wars and he left her alona.”

“It was amona.”

“Agroana.”

“He left her alona.”

“He didn’t write a letter and he didn’t telephona,” Roman joined in as the three started dancing in a circle around the edge of the stage. “Now Othello loved Dessy like Adonis loved Venus.”

“And Dessy loved Othello because he had a big-” Logan started

“Sword!” Roman jumped in.

Patton redirected the rap, “But Iago had a plan that was clever and slick. He was crafty.”

“He was sly.”

“He was sort of a-” Logan and Patton both turned to Roman in alarm, “Penis?”

Logan shook his head as the lights started to flash colours to match the beat. Patton continued, “Iago said, I’m gonna shaft the moor.”

“What you gonna do tell us!” the other two said.

“He said, I know his tragic flaw.”

“That he’s too damn jealous.”

“I need a dupe. I need a dope. I need a kind of a schmo.”

“So he found a chump-sucker by the name of Cassio,” Logan stepped back up onto the stage.

“So he plants on him Dessy’s handkerchief,” Roman stepped up with him.

“So Othello gets to wondering if just maybe if while he’d been fighting, commanding an army,” Patton jumped up with them. 

They all three said, “Had Dessy and Cass been playing hide the salami?” They all three turned and jumped back off the stage and continued their dance. 

Roman started up again, “So he goes back home and smothers the bi-yatch.”

Logan took the next line, “And he thinks he pulled it off without a hi-yatch.”

“But there’s Emilia at the door,” Patton jumps in.

“Who we met in act four.”

“She says, yo homie, she wasn’t no whore!”

“She was-” Roman started.

“Pure!” the other two shouted.

“She was-”

“Clean!”

“She was-”

“Virginal too!”

All three said, “So why’d you have to and make her face turn blue? It’s true, it’s you, now what you gonna do?”

“And Othello said,” Patton pointed to Roman.

Roman pulled a plastic sword out from under the stage, “This is getting pretty scary.”

“Took out his blade and committed hari-kari.”

Roman stabbed himself in the stomach and fell down onto the stage. 

“Iago got caught,” Patton stepped back up onto the stage.

“But he probably copped a plea,” Logan joined him.

“Loaded up his bags.”

“And moved to Beverly!” Roman hopped back to his feet.

“Hills that is!” all three said. “Africa.”

The lights stopped flashing as Virgil emerged and stopped in the middle of the three. He looked around at all of them, aghast, before saying, “Why?”

Logan took off his sunglasses before saying, “Maybe we should move onto some comedies.”

“Yeah, comedies,” Roman muttered before gathering the hats and sunglasses and disappearing off-stage. 


	4. Comedies (Or Four Weddings and a Transvestite)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roman combines all sixteen comedies into one calamity. The other three have to perform it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Incest, cross-dressing, other sexual metaphors, bad racial joke

Logan sighed and turned back to the audience, “Right, so Shakespeare’s comedies were greatly influenced by the Roman plays by Plautus and Terence, their hilarious metamorphosis, and the rich Italian traditions. Shakespeare was a genius at borrowing and adapting other people’s work.”

Patton looked very confused, “Isn’t that just plagiarism?” 

“No no no no,” Logan explained. “Shakespeare didn’t plagiarize. He distilled.”

“Whatever, he’s still a big cheater,” Patton crossed his arms.

“Patton, I think what Logan is trying to say is that Shakespeare was a genius in that he managed to make 16 plays out of 5 ideas,” Virgil said.

“Well, I can never tell them apart.” Patton lifted up a hand to start counting off, “Like what’s the one with the shipwreck, the identical twins, and the big wedding at the end?”

Logan and Virgil blinked at him, looked at each other, then back to Patton. “You’re kidding, right?” Virgil asked. When Patton shook his head, Virgil answered, “It’s all of them. The answers all of them.

Logan looked like he wanted to say something, but thought better of it, opting for, “Okay, so Shakespeare obviously should have written one exemplary play instead of sixteen sucky ones.”

“Well he didn’t Logan, so what are we going to do?” Virgil moaned. 

“That’s where we had a backup plan. I had Roman take the liberty of condensing Shakespeare’s catastrophic, comedic cacophony of chaos into a single play,” Logan smirked at Virgil.

Suddenly, Roman appeared, hopping onto the stage next to Patton, stage-whispering, “Hand these to Logan,” handing over three red folders, before disappearing backstage again.

“I’m right here,” Logan said, confusion imminent in his voice. Patton handed a folder to each of the others. Logan shook his head as he opened the folder, “Which he has entitled ‘The Comedy of Two Well-Measured Gentlemen Lost in the Merry Wives of Venice on a Midsummer’s Folk Night in Winter or-”

Virgil picked up as Logan trailed off, “Cymbeline of Pericles, the Merchant in the Tempest of the Taming of Much is Delighted or-”

Patton cut in as Virgil rubbed at his temple with one hand, “Four Weddings and a Transvestite!”

“You’re really excited,” Virgil looked at Patton with worry.  
“Have you ever Rocky Horror Picture Show?” Patton asked.

“Yeah, but what does, oh,” Virgil looked back down at his script in sudden horror.

“Guys! Wait wait wait!” Roman suddenly appeared again, carrying a cardboard box. He went to hop onto the stage again, but missed, tripping and falling, sending the box contents scattering at Virgil’s feet. “You forgot your props,” he added weakly.

“Are you okay?” Logan asked, helping him back up as Virgil gathered the items that had fallen out.

“I-I’m gonna go cry in the bathroom,” Roman murmured as he disappeared once again. 

“I’ll join you later!” Patton called out, cheerfully.

“Alright then.” Logan announces, “Act 1!”

Virgil, who had moved the box to the edge of the stage, was quickly joined by Patton who snatched a curly blonde wig, hissing, “I want to be the princess.”

“Fine,” Virgil whispered back, grabbing a straw hat and a cane.

Meanwhile, Logan had started reading from the folder, “A Bohemian duke swears an oath of celibacy, turns the rule of the city over to his tyrannical brother, and sets sail for the Golden Age of Greece. While rounding the heel of Italy, he gets caught in a terrible tempest that casts him up on a desert island along with his sweet, innocent, and clueless young daughter.”

“Ahem, oh dear father!” Patton says in a falsetto voice. “I am so lonely and pubescent on this island. I am sad. Boo-hoo. And frisky. Rawr?” He looks at Virgil in confusion while Virgil just shakes his head in disbelief. 

“Um,” he looks down at his own script. “Oh precious daughter, watch out for signs of colonial oppression lurking in caves, watching for young virgins.”

“Okay?” Patton said before the two returned to the box of props.

“Meanwhile, the duke’s long-lost son, a handsome, dashing, clueless young merchant, is also shipwrecked. Coincidentally, on the very same island. They need better weather people,” Logan mutters the last part almost to himself.

Virgil had traded his straw hat for a very purple top hat. He starts, “Oh, how will I survive on this strange and foreign land without funds! I must find me-” he trails off as he tries to comprehend what he’s reading, “-an old Jew?” He clears his throat, noticing Patton had found a very, tiny hat, “Oh look, a convenient Italian-Judia stereotype now.

“What’s the matter yeh?” Patton says in a horrid Italian accent. “If everything was free, the world would be full of philanthropists.”

“The wicked Jew tricks the merchant into putting his brains down as collateral on the loan,” Logan walks by as Virgil takes off his purple hat and hands it to Patton. 

“Such a deal,” Virgil says, shaking hands with Patton.

“It’s really not,” Logan mutters as the two return to the prop box. “Act two! Fearing ravishment, the clueless young princess disguises herself as a boy and becomes a page to a handsome, dashing, clueless young soldier. Do you need all these adjectives?”

Virgil had found a soldier’s hat in the box, “You there, boy!”

Patton, who had put the wig back on with a black beret overtop. “Yes? I mean,” Patton clears his throat before purposely lowering his voice. “Yes?”

“You shall woo the Lady Violivia for me, for she is shrewish and I am sick with love!” Virgil commanded.

“I too feel phlegmy?” Patton looked up in confusion again. “Um, for while I may not speak it aloud, I do love thee, though I am a boy.”

Virgil sighed before returning to his commanding soldier voice, “I swingeth not that way, boy. Deliver this letter to the lady Violivia.” He looked behind the script in his folder, finding an envelope and handing it over to Patton, “Go, hence!”

“Um, whence?” Patton asked, taking the letter.

“Hie thee hither from hence to thence!” Virgil said, before running back over to the box of props.

“Act three!” Logan announces. “The beautiful, virginal, and clueless young princess arrives in man-drag to woo the clueless Violivia.” At this, he turns to where Roman had disappeared and says, “There is a thesaurus. It’s full of words that are different, but mean the same thing.”

Virgil had found a hat with netting and a feather on it, “It is I, the bitchy shrew Violivia. Come hither!

“Whither?” Patton asks, still in the same strange wig/hat combo.

“Hither from thither and if you come in, I’ll show you my zither. What is this?” Virgil looks up at Logan in confusion who just shrugs.

“Act four!” Logan announces as Virgil returned to the box. “A puckish young sprite leads the lovers deep into a forest where he squeezes the aphroditic juice of a hermaphroditic flower into their eyes. Meanwhile, the queen of the fairies seduces a rude mechanical.”

“Really?” Logan turns to see Virgil staring at him, holding a rubber horse mask. Logan does his best not to laugh, but Virgil still says, “No. Not doing it,” and throws the mask back into the box. 

“Act five! Virgil, get your hats,” Logan says, to which Virgil looked down at his script and hurried over to the box to gather the many hats he had worn so far. “In the ensuing bisexual animalistic orgy, the Princess’s man-clothes get ripped off, revealing a smokin’ bod.” Patton whipped off his beret hat. “The merchant recognizes his sister.”

Virgil puts on the purple hat, “My nearly identical twin!”

“My long-lost and strangely attractive brother,” Patton responds.

“The shrew realizes she’s bi-curious,” Logan continues.

Virgil tilts his head so the purple hat just falls to the ground and puts on the shrew’s hat, “O brave new world!”

“The dashing young soldier decides he actually prefers Bottom,” Logan says.

Virgil tilts his head once again then puts on the soldier’s hat with the horse mask on his arm, “And thereby hangs a sweet tail!”

Logan continues, “The Jew exits pursued by a bear.”

Patton takes off his wig and places the tiny hat back on. “Oy!” he points out. “A bear!”

“And they all get married in the state of California and go out to dinner. Now give us your hands if we be friends.” Virgil and Patton join Logan for the last line, “Because all is well that finally ends!”

The three gather the props and scripts and place them back into the box. “Well that was 16 plays in-” Virgil looks down at his wrist only to remember he wasn’t wearing a watch, “-I don’t know how long. But if we’re going to get out of here before midnight, we really got to get back to the tragedies.”  
“Woot! Tragedies!” Logan shouts, excited.

Patton starts to jump up and down, but stops when Virgil calls out, “Logan.”

“Let’s get pumped!” Logan starts to run around the edge of the stage, high-fiving the front row audience members.

“Logan!” Virgil calls out his name, falling to his knees. “Logan!” 

At the third call, Logan finally turns, “What?”

“Tragedies are sad,” Virgil full-out lays down on his side.

“But we just got pumped,” Logan starts, but Patton grabs him by the elbow and leads him behind the curtain, the box of props under one arm.


	5. Macbeth/Julius Caesar/Antony and Cleopatra/Troilus and Cressida

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With a rhythm finally going, the boys are able to make it through a number of plays. Although not without issues and arguments.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Mentioned death, bad accents, fake vomit, more sexual metaphors

Roman hopped back onto the stage, wearing a Scottish kilt, and pulled Virgil back up to his feet. He then turned to the audience, “Interestingly enough, we found that Shakespeare’s comedies aren’t nearly as funny as his tragedies.”

“Oh, are you talking about the Scottish play?” Virgil asked, pulling at Roman’s kilt. 

“Oh yeah,” Patton exclaimed, reentering. “Mac-”

“No!” both Virgil and Roman cried out, effectively cutting Patton off. 

“We don’t say the name of that play,” Virgil hissed.

“Why not?” Patton asked.

“Because it’s cursed,” Virgil explained. “It’s bad luck to say the name of that play in a theatre unless you’re performing it. That’s why we refer to it as ‘The Scottish Play.’”

“But we are performing it,” Patton argued. “And there’s nothing remotely Scottish about it.”

“Well, it’s all in the performance, Patton,” Roman draped an arm around his friend as he started to dramatically explain. “It’s gotta be done so that you can see the heather rippling on the highlands. Feel the cold summer breeze wafting up your kilt. Smell the vomit steaming in the alleyway.” 

“Exactly! Kilt!” Virgil ran off behind the curtains. 

“Whiskey!” Roman cried out.

“Vomit!” Patton joined in, running off behind the curtains as well. 

“Okay! Guys, gals, and non-binary pals, we now present our authentically Scottish-” at that word Roman switched his voice to a Scottish accent, “-production of Macbeth.” He suddenly stopped, looking quite horrified with himself. He quickly spun and spit, before running off behind the curtains as well. 

Virgil ran back onto the stage, having found his own kilt and a curly grey wig. He started to wave his hands around like a witch over a cauldron,“Doil, boil, toil and trouble!”

Roman returned to the stage, having found a golf hat, and a plastic sword. “Stay ye imperrrrrr-” he rolled out the ‘r’ for much longer than necessary, “‘rrrfect macspeaker. Tell me more.”

“Macbeth-” Virgil cut himself off and started to spin.

Roman quickly stopped him, “It’s okay Virgil, we’re performing it.”

“Okay,” Virgil cleared his throat and returned to his witch voice. He and Roman circled each other, “Macbeth, Macbeth, beware Macduff. No man of woman born shall harm Macbeth till Birnam Wood come to Dunsinane.” he leaned closer, “Don’t ye know?” Virgil then quickly disappeared behind the curtains again. 

“Och, that be great,” Roman said, scratching his head with the sword. “Then macwhat macneed maci macfear of Macduff?”

Patton stepped up behind Roman, wearing his own kilt and golf hat, pointing a golf club at Roman, and said in a deep Southern accent, “See you, Jimmy! And know-” 

Roman turned, his eyes wide, “What are you saying? You’re supposed to be speaking in a Scottish accent.”

“It is Scottish. Southern Scottish,” Patton tried to explain.

“That’s not a thing,” Roman argued back.

“Guys!” Logan’s head popped out from behind one of the curtains. “We are on a time crunch. Keep going.”

“Fine,” Roman muttered as Logan disappeared again.

“Ahem, See you, Jimmy! And know that Macduff was from his mother’s womb untimely ripped! What d’ye think about that?” Patton said.

“Och! I do nae like it,” Roman admitted. “But I support a woman’s right t’choose. Lay on haggis-breath!”

The two started a strange sword fight with the plastic sword and the golf club. “Ah, Macbeth!” Patton cried out. “Ye killed me wife, ye murdered me wee bairns, and ye did a poop in my soup!”

“Och!” Roman suddenly pulled back in disgust. “I didnae!”

“Yes you did, I had to throw half of it away.” Patton lifted his golf club above his head and made chase after Roman behind the curtains, shouting, “Come back here! I’m so mad I could just chop your head off!”

Patton reemerged, this time carrying a foam head along with the golf club, “Behold! Here lies the usurper's cursed head. Macbeth-” he cut himself off to spin and spit, “-yer arse is out the windy.” He carefully placed the head down on centre-stage and gets into golfer’s position, “And know that never was there a story of more blood and more death than this of Mister and Missus Macbeth.” He stopped to spin and spit again. “Fore!” He shouted the last line before barely tapping the head with the golf club so that it skittered to the edge of the stage. “Thankee,” he bowed, then scooped the head up as he disappeared behind the curtains. 

Virgil passed Patton on his way out, having changed from his kilt and wig to a toga, “Meanwhile, in ancient Rome, Julius Caesar was a much-beloved tyrant.”

Logan and Roman entered. Roman was also wearing a toga with a laurel wreath while Logan had put on Virgil’s grey wig and a long cloak. “All hail Julius Caesar!” both Logan and Virgil shouted. 

“Hail, citizens!” Roman called back as the three stood with their backs to each other on the stage.

“Who was warned by a soothsayer,” Virgil continued.   
“Beware the Ides of March,” Logan poked Roman in the elbow, causing Roman to cry out in pain.

“The great Caesar chose to ignore the warning,” Virgil said.

“What the hell are the Ides of March?” Roman scoffed.

“The 15th of March,” Logan poked Roman in the elbow again, causing another cry of pain.

“Why,” Roman gasps, looking down at his wrist, which was notably watchless, “that’s today!”

Virgil and Logan both pulled collapsable knives from under their costumes and stabbed Roman multiple times in the back. Roman dramatically collapsed to the floor, gasping, “Et tu, Brute?” before dying.

“Sorry man,” Logan shrugged before grabbing Virgil’s knife and running off-stage. 

“Friends, non-dead Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears! I come to bury Caesar!” Virgil looked down at Roman and gave him a slight kick, “So bury him, and let’s get on to my play, Antony…”

“And Cleopatra!” Patton runs back onto the stage, wearing a toga dress and a short black wig, a plastic snake in one hand while the other grabbed Virgil’s. “Is this an asp I see before me? Come, venomous wretch!” He makes the snake attack his neck, before running off-stage to fake vomit on the front row, again.

“No! Patton! Stop!” both Virgil and Roman, jumping up from his death position, ran after him, whipping off their togas. They quickly used them to wipe off the audience that got fake-vomited on then stuffing them into Patton’s arms.

“What?” Patton asked, confused.

“Look, Patton,” Roman sighed. “You seem to have this bizarre notion that all of Shakespeare’s tragic heroines wear really ugly wigs and vomit on people before they die.”

“Well,” Patton whipped his wig off, “I think that is artistic interpretation.”

Virgil collapsed to the floor, “Vomit is not an artistic interpretation.”

“Well,” Patton looked around desperately before pointing to the girl next to those he fake-vomited on, “She was into it.”

Both Roman and Virgil looked from him to the girl, staring in shock as she began nodding in agreement. 

“Patton,” Logan broke the silence, stepping out into the corner Patton was still standing in. “Antony and Cleopatra has nothing to do with gastrointestinal distress. It’s an exciting, trans-global thriller about political manoeuvring across the ancient Mediterranean.” Patton rolled his eyes, as he walked behind the curtain.

“Oh!” Virgil said, excitedly. “It’s one of Shakespeare’s trans-global plays? I actually like those! Like the one that totally predicted twenty-first-century wireless communication!”

“Wait, what?” Roman turned to look at him.

“Yeah, it was called Two Mobile Kinsmen,” Virgil explained.

“No, no,” Roman said, turning away for a breath before turning back to Virgil. “Shakespeare wrote a play called Two NOBLE kinsmen.”

“Not Two Mobile Kinsmen,” Logan cut in.

“Two Noble Kinsmen,” they both said.

“Nah, I’m pretty sure it was Two Mobile Kinsmen because the two kinsmen were Bill Gates and Steve Jobs,” Virgil argued. 

“No, the kinsmen are two cousins who fall in love with the same woman,” Logan tried to explain.

“Oh and I suppose they were just texting her like ‘OMG, You’re my BFF, LOL’?” Virgil snapped.

“No!” both Logan and Roman snapped back.

“Well, F U. I kinda haven’t heard of that play,” Virgil rubbed at his neck with one hand.

“Well,” Logan tried to explain. “That’s because it’s from the canon of Shakespeare’s plays which are neither tragedy nor comedy, nor history. Scholars refer to them as the ‘problem’ plays. In some circles, they are known as the ‘obscure’ plays, or the ‘lesser’ plays, or just the ‘bad’ plays. And yet, not all the bad plays are completely without merit. In fact, Troilus and Cressida is hardly bad at all.” Logan suddenly got very excited, “I actually discuss it in my unpublished monograph about Shakespeare entitled I Love My Willy.” At this, both Virgil and Roman exchanged nervous glances. “Oh, you guys would love it! It’s big, it’s long, and I’ve been hammering away on it for years! In fact, I’d like to whip it out for you right now!” Virgil and Roman, who had both been slowly looking more and more horrified, leapt forward with cries to stop as Logan suddenly reached down into his pants. “Monograph!” he shouts as he pulls out a book, seemingly ignoring Roman and Virgil’s cries of relief.

“What else do you keep in your pants?” Virgil asked.

“What can’t I keep in them? They’re huge,” Logan pulled out his waistband to demonstrate.

“Okay stop,” Roman pulled Virgil back who had started to step forward to look down the pants. “Maybe we could do an interpretive dance, performance-art version of your thingy.”  
“Can we?” Patton jumped back onto the stage, holding two long streamer wands. “I love interpretive dance. It’s so pretentious!”

“Yeah! And you got props!” Roman jumped up and down.

“Now wait just a minute,” Logan argued. “I was thinking of a more straightforward, scholarly approach.”

“Naw, screw that,” Virgil snorted. “But I’m not dancing. See ya.” He exited the stage, leaving Logan gaping like a fish.

“Go ahead and read,” Roman poked Logan’s monograph with his streamer wand. “And we’ll interpret.”

“Well, okay,” Logan opened and began to read while Roman and Patton began their interpretive dance behind him. “Troilus and Cressida was written in 1603, published in quarto in 1604, and appears in the First Folio, although this version is some one hundred and sixty-six lines longers than the second quarto edition of 1645, which is some one hundred and sixty-six lines shorter.” His voice trailed off as he turned around to see what Patton and Roman were doing behind them. He snapped his book shut causing both Patton and Roman to jerk to a stop, “Audience, my monograph has nothing to do with dancing and whatever these are!” He smacked at Patton’s streamer with his book.

“Well, isn’t there anything about the plot?” Roman asked.

“Of course I talk about the plot!” Logan yelled. “I give it a whole two sentence in the footnote on page twenty-nine! I don’t even want to do this anymore!” He stomped off the stage in the direction that Virgil has reemerged from, slamming the book into his stomach as he growls, “You do it!”

Virgil looked back in confusion as he stepped onto the stage, where Patton and Roman look slightly shell-shocked. “Okay, um,” he opened the book, trying to find the page. “Let’s see, ‘Troilus, youngest son of Priam, King of Troy...’” He looked up at Roman and asked, “You be Troilus and I’ll be the king?” Roman just nods, so Virgil continued, “‘...loves Cressida…’”

“I’ll get the wigs,” Patton said, waving his hands in excitement, running off-stage. 

“We have wigs for this?” Virgil murmurs as he watches Patton run off. “Okay, um, ‘...and has arranged with her uncle Pandarus for a meeting. Although she feigns indifference, she is attracted to him…’”

“I have to feign indifference?” Patton called out from behind the curtains.

“Yeah, is that a problem?” Roman called back.

“What’s feigning?” Patton asked.

“Oh no,” Roman muttered, turning back to Virgil.

“Um, ‘...meanwhile, Agamemnon, the Greek commander, has surrounded the Trojans-’” Virgil stopped as he realized that Roman and Patton, who had returned wearing his curly princess wig from earlier, had started to sing ‘Agamemnon, do-do-do-do’ and snapping their fingers to a beat. He smacked the book shut himself causing both to stop and turn to him, looking much like a child in trouble. 

“Ahem, boring!” Patton said, trying to seem more bored than he was.

“This is the kind of stuff that kids hate to study in school because it’s so boring,” Roman moaned.

“Yeah, like as soon as you said ‘Agamemnon, do-do-do-do,’ I was asleep,” Patton turned to point at the audience. “No, I’m sorry, but I promised them I would not do dry, boring, vomitless Shakespeare.

“Maybe vomitless?” Roman begged.

“I am a professional, Roman,” Patton held up his hand in defiance. 

“You don’t even know these people,” Virgil tried to point out. 

“That’s not true!” Patton argued. He turned to the audience and ran out to grab a girl sitting in the front row, pulling her to her feet, “This is Lillian and she came all the way here on a dirty bus to be here tonight, and-” He lets go of the girl and hurried down the row to grab another girl, “-this is Jennifer, who has a test tomorrow that she hasn’t studied for, and-” He ran down the row to grab a guy this time, “-this is little Timmy. And he thought he was coming to see Hamilton and he feels totally ripped off!”

“That guy is at least six feet tall,” Roman pointed out as the guy towered over Patton.

“What is your point, Patton?” Virgil tried to redirect them. 

“The point is I love these people, and I don’t want to see them get turned off to Shakespeare,” Patton came back onto the stage, trying to explain. “That’s what happened to me. When I was in school and we were supposed to be studying, I’d be looking out the window at the kids playing ball, and thinking, ‘Why can’t this Shakespeare stuff be more like sports?’”

“Well, how do you take Shakespeare and turn it into sports?” Roman demanded.

“Well, sports are exciting. Engaging,” Patton gasped as he thought of an example. “Take the histories, for example. With all those kings knocking each other off, running up and down the field, the throne passing from one guy to the next. It’s exactly like football, but with a crown!”

Virgil blinked in shock, “Hey, they are kinda similar, aren’t they?”

“I think I have a whistle,” Roman reached into his pants to pull it out.

“I’ll get a crown!” Patton grabbed the monograph from Virgil and ran behind the curtain, to return with a crown instead of it and his wig.   
Roman blew his whistle. “Okay, line ‘em up!”


	6. Histories/End of Act 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A football game and the end of Act 1. What could go wrong?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: fake death, bad pick-up lines

“Let’s kick some royal ass!” Virgil shouted as they got into a lineup.

Roman took the crown and calls out, “Twenty-five! Forty-two! Richard the Third! Henry the Fourth, Part One and Two!”

“Hup!” all three call out as Virgil steps out of line as Roman tosses the crown to Patton who tosses it back.

Virgil begins announcing, “And the crown is snapped to Richard the Second, that well-spoken fourteenth-century monarch. He’s fading back to pass, looking for an heir downfield, but there’s a heavy rush from King John!”

Patton, having pulled a plastic lightsaber from under the stage, swipes at Roman, who cries out, “My gross flesh sinks downwards!” 

“The crown is in the air, and Henry the Sixth comes up with it!” Virgil continued.

Patton took the crown from Roman, who was lying dead on the stage, and lifts it above his head, “Victory is mine!” 

Roman jumps up as Virgil races forward, taking the lightsaber from Patton and swiping at him, “But he’s hit immediately by King John. Oh no! He’s cutting Henry the Sixth into three parts, that’s gotta hurt! You better believe that this could be the end of the War of the Roses cycle!”

“King John is in the clear!” Patton grabbed the whistle from Roman as Roman ran around behind where Virgil was running in place.

“My soul hath elbow room!” Virgil shouted.  
“He’s at the forty, the thirty, the twenty, ooh, but he’s poisoned on the ten-yard line!” Patton calls out as Roman knocks Virgil to the ground, taking the crown from him. Virgil pushes himself out and walks over to Patton. “Looks like he’s out for the game. Replacing him now is number seventy-two, King Lear.”

“To Regan and Goneril I hand off my kingdom! Cordelia, you go long!” Roman makes as if to throw the crown across the room. Virgil quickly leans over to whisper something in Patton’s ear, to which Patton immediately blew his whistle, causing Virgil to flinch and cover his ears. 

“Fictional character on the field. Lear is disqualified!” Patton shouted, pointing at Roman. 

“What? But he! Bastards,” Roman throws the crown onto the stage. 

Virgil swooped in to pick it up, tossing it to himself as Patton continued announcing, “Lining up now is that father-son team of Henry the Fourth and Prince Hal. Center snaps to the quarterback, quarterback gives to the hunchback. And it looks like Richard the Third’s limp is giving him trouble.”

Virgil starts to fake a limp, “A horse, a horse! My kingdom for a horse!”

Roman ran forward and tackled Virgil again. Patton blows his whistle again, shouting, “There’s a pile-up on the field!”

Patton leans down to pick the crown. Roman sits up, slightly out of breath, while Virgil takes over announcing again, “Fumble! And Henry the Eighth comes up with it. He’s at the fifteen, the ten. He stops at the five-yard line to chop off his wife’s head.”

“Call me daddy!” Patton remarked as Roman looks up in confusion just in time to see Patton swipe at his neck with the lightsaber. He collapses, dead, again.

“Touchdown!” Virgil shouted. “For the Red Rose! You better believe that this is the beginning of the Tudor dynasty!”

Roman hopped to his feet at the three begin cheerleading, “Henry the Fifth, Richard the Third, the whole royal family’s frickin absurd! Go Gators!”

Virgil grabbed the crown and lightsaber and exits with Roman, both of them laughing. Patton starts to follow, but stops, saying, “Can I have some house lights please?” He stepped off the stage, walking over to an audience member, asking, “Can I borrow your program for a sec?” 

He steps back onto the stage with it as Logan comes back out, asking, “Um, Patton? What are you doing?”

“I just wanted to check the list of plays,” Patton points down at the list in the program. “I think we might have done them all.”

“Really?” Virgil reemerges, having noticed that Patton didn’t follow them. Both him and Logan jump onto the stage and look at the program with Patton.

“Yeah, we did all the histories just now,” Patton pointed out.  
“The comedies were a ‘clastrophic lump of hilarity,’” Logan recalled.

“Okay, that leaves just the tragedies,” Virgil tries to recall them all. “We did Titus Andronicus with all the blood-”

“-Romeo and Juliet we did-” Roman came back out too, hopping on the stage to join the other four.

“-Julius Caesar, Troilus and Cressida-” Virgil continued.

“We rapped Othello, Lear was in the football game, Macbeth you did with Scottish accents. What about Antony and Cleopatra?” Logan asked. 

“Yeah, I puked on that lady over there,” Patton pointed out the lady in the audience. 

“Right. Timon of Athens I mentioned. Coriolanus?” Virgil asked.

“Let’s skip it,” Patton said.

“Why? What’s the matter with Coriolanus?” Roman asked.

“It’s in the name. Coriol-anus. I think it’s offensive,” Patton gave a shudder.

“Okay, we’ll skip the anus play,” Virgil patted him on the shoulder.   
“And that’s it, right? We can go home?” Patton perked up a bit with that question.

Logan looked down at his wrist, “Okay, great. Looks like we can let these guys go early.”

“Wait, guys,” Roman had grabbed the program and was pointing to one play on it. “We forgot one.”

The other three stepped up to read what he saw and all moaned in unison, “Hamlet!”

“Shakespeare didn’t write Hamlet,” Patton argued.

“Yeah, he did,” Roman lifted up the program to point at the play name again.

“Well then, what is it about?” Patton asked.

“You know,” Logan stepped up. “The young prince struggling with his conscience after his uncle murders his father?”

“Woah,” Patton held up a hand to stop Logan. “We own that on VHS and it is called The Lion King.”

Logan just shakes his head as he turned back to the audience, “Guys, gals, and non-binary pals, thirty-six plays down, one to go. Perhaps the greatest play ever written. A play of such lofty poetic and philosophical-” 

“Wait a minute, Logan,” Patton cut in. “Hamlet is a serious, hard-core play, and I’m just not up for it right now.”

“What do you mean?” Virgil asked. “It’s the last one!”

“I know, I know,” Patton sighed. “It’s just that that football game left me emotionally and physically drained. I don’t think I could do it justice.   
Virgil scoffed at that, “We don’t have to do it justice. We haven’t done any of these justice. We just have to do it.”

“I don’t want to,” Patton argued.   
“Look, Patton,” Roman cut in as Virgil looked like he was about to snarl. “Our show’s called The Complete Works of William Shakespeare.”

“Well then, we’ll change it to The Complete Works of William Shakespeare Except Hamlet,” Patton mocked Roman.

Logan snorted, “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Look, Patton,” Virgil jumped back in, putting one arm around Patton. “I think all your friends here would like to see Hamlet. What do you guys say?”

The audience started to cheer with Roman and Virgil’s encouragement. “Fine!” Patton called above everyone else. “We’ll do Hamlet-” the other three started to cheer, “-as a three-man show! If you guys feel so strongly about it, then you do it. I’m going to hang out with them again.” Patton walked off the stage and, spotting the one empty seat in the front row, headed over to sit in the spot, arm around the audience member he sat next to, “This one is my friend. I’ll sit here and we’ll watch it together.”

“No. Patton,” Virgil and Logan followed him off to try and pull Patton back up

“You can’t make me!” Patton shouted trying to struggle out of their grip, but he failed as they finally got him onto the stage. “Fine! Don’t touch me!” He shoved the other two off.

“Okay. It’s fine, Patton,” Virgil looked down at the now-destroyed program he had managed to grab, turning to return it to the audience member. “Sorry about that.”

“Right. We start off with the guard scene, so we’ll need Bernardo and Horatio,” Logan started to converse with Virgil and Roman.

“Gotcha,” Virgil agreed.

“We’ll need Rosencrantz and Guildenstern too,” Logan continued.

“Nah, they’ve got their own play. We can skip them,” Roman noticed that Patton had snuck off the stage again. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“Um,” Patton looked around in desperation. “I’ll kill the blessed virgin,” he points at the guy Roman had been flirting with earlier. 

“Fine, but I think it’s gonna turn him off to live theatre,” Logan sighed.

“I’m not gonna do it! You can’t make me!” Patton shouted one last time, before running down the aisle and slamming out the door.

“Get back here, you Shakespeare weenie!” Logan ran after him, clearing the door before it even slammed shut.

“No no!” Virgil turned to where Roman was still standing next to him. “Go get them!” 

Roman pulled the plastic cleaver from earlier out of his pants and, with a war cry, leapt so he cleared the second half of the stage and ran out the door himself.

Virgil, realizing what was happening, screamed after him, “No!” He backs up in slight shock, looking around in nervousness, “Shit. Um, you know Roman and Logan are usually much faster than Patton.” He turns again in a circle, looking around at the audience, “Um, oh!” He runs off the stage and returns with a wooden lance, a guard helmet, and the curly princess wig, “I don’t need Patton. I don’t need Logan. Don’t need Roman.” He puts the wig on, “Guys, Gals, and non-binary pals, I now present Hamlet.” He clears his throat and began, “Who goes there?” He then turns so he is facing where he was standing, taking off the wig and putting on the helmet, “Nay, answer me. Stand and unfold yourself.” Virgil turned back the other way, switching the helmet and wig, although he was struggling with the wig, “Long live the King!” Virgil returned to the second position with the helmet on, “Bernardo?” He started to turn back the other way, but stopped and looked around, “This is stupid, isn’t it? Let’s never talk about this again.” Virgil ran off stage to return the pieces he had grabbed. 

“Oh!” Virgil returned carrying a stack of notecards. “Roman had this idea that we could give out some Shakespearean pickup lines. We all thought he was insane, but it might be just the thing that could buy us enough time. So, can I get a raise of hands, who here is single?” He looked around before pointing at one audience member and running over to him. “Hello there. How long have you been single?” 

“Um, about a year,” the audience member answered. 

“About a year. So not too long out of the game. Um, I think you need a little courage to pull this one off, but I think you can do it. All you have to do is go up to someone and say, ‘How about a little Puck?’” Virgil gave a slight smile as the audience burst out laughing. “Who else? You!” He ran to another audience member. “Hello there, how long have you been single?” 

“About 24 hours,” the audience member answered.

“Oh, um,” Virgil stumbled. “So it is still very new. I think you need something easy for when you’re ready. How about-” he flipped through a couple of the flashcards before stopping on one, “-this one! When you are at a restaurant and you notice someone orders the same thing as you, just say, ‘Et tu, cutie?’” The audience laughed again, “Okay, one more! You!” He ran over to another audience member. “Hello, how long have you been single?”

“Essentially my whole life,” the audience member answered.

“Essentially?” Virgil looked down at him in slight shock. “There’s a story there. Okay, so this one you need to know the person already and know they like Shakespeare. What you do is-” Virgil starts clapping in rhythm, “- ‘I’d like for you to please go out with me.’ How’s that?” Virgil jumped back onto the stage, “I thought that they would be back by now. Um, how about we go to intermission? There is a bake sale and maybe by the time it’s done, maybe Logan, Roman, and Patton will be back. Have fun!” He starts screaming in panic as he runs out the door just before the lights go up and intermission music starts playing.


	7. A Phone Call

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Virgil is still alone at the beginning of act 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, it took so long, but it turned out my parents weren't going to give me their wifi password while visiting and I'm stilling battling constant allergies. (as I type this, my upper lip is swollen and I have no idea why, I'm coughing up a lung, and still recovering from a severe skin reaction to my parent's new laundry soap)  
> Warnings: None in this one, for once

The audience begins to settle down as the house lights go down and the stage lights come up. There is slight shifting behind the curtain before Virgil finally comes out, nervousness evident. “Hey everyone!” he tried to be cheerful. “Did you have a nice intermission? Get some goods at the bake sale?” He nods along as the audience talks. “Oh, how about-” Virgil is cut off by the shrill sound of a ringtone. He groans loudly, saying, “Guys! Do we really have to go over this again? Please silence-” He cuts himself off, turns in a circle, before jumping off the side of the stage and looking underneath, pulling out a ringing cell phone. “It’s mine,” he admits, sheepishly. “Roman put it under there so I wouldn’t be distracted and miss my cue. But that is him calling! I’m going to put him on speaker!” Virgil hopped back on the stage, answering the phone and pressing the appropriate button, “Hello?”

“Hello, Virgil!” Roman’s enthusiastic, but tired voice came through the speaker. 

“Where are you?” Virgil asked. 

“Oh, we’re on our way back from the Gainesville Regional Airport,” Roman explained. 

“Gainesville in Florida?”

“Well, it sure ain’t Missouri.”

Virgil paused before choosing to ignore that, “We have an airport?”

“I sure hope so. Caught Patton trying to make his way through airport security to get out of here,” Roman said. 

Virgil, who honestly already looked stressed to the max, turned away from the phone for a deep breath before saying with fake cheerfulness, “Oh yay! So is Patton with you?”

“Yeah yeah,” Roman said, sounding slightly distracted.

“Great, just put him on,” Virgil sighed as Roman made a noise of agreement and the sound of shuffling came over the speaker. Virgil waited about ten seconds before screaming into the phone, “Patton, what the hell!!!!”

“Still me,” Roman didn’t sound the slightest bit fazed, while Virgil groaned and the shuffling continued.

This time, Virgil waited until he heard Patton, “Hello?”

“Hi Patton,” Virgil said, his voice dripping with sticky sweetness.

“Hi Virgil,” Patton replied in the exact same tone. “How are you?”

“I’m doing okay,” Virgil answered.

“Just okay?” Patton asked.

“Just okay,” Virgil confirmed.

“What’s wrong?” Patton sounded slightly worried.

“Well, I had a test this morning, allergy season has kicked in, and oh yeah-” Virgil suddenly dropped his fake sweet tone in exchange for yelling, “-you three ditched me at the end of act one and I’m stuck in front of all these people all alone!”

“Well, I told you I didn’t want to do Hamlet,” Patton groaned.

“Are you ready to do the play now?” Virgil was practically begging, holding his phone with both hands like some sort of lifeline.

“I don’t know. Can I talk to the blessed virgin?” Patton asked.

Virgil looked up in shock, turning to the guy Roman had flirted with all the way back during Romeo and Juliet, before getting an idea, “No! He is very mad at you and he isn’t going to talk to you until you get back here and do Hamlet.”  
Patton sighed loudly before saying, “Fine. I guess I’ll come back.” Virgil pumped his fist in victory, but before he could say anything, Patton was continuing, “But, I should warn you, Logan may be a little while. I put Roman’s cleaver in that man-purse thing he has and airport security was not happy.”

“What?” Virgil’s voice raised a few octaves in disbelief.

“Yeah, I thought it would work better for bringing it back, but they called him ‘a danger’ and took him back for ‘serious questioning,’” Patton explained.

“Oh, um okay, put me back on with Roman,” Virgil ran a hand through his hair as the shuffling started up again.

This time, he waited until he heard Roman say, “Hey, I’m back. Also, Virgil, don’t forget to do the sonnets.”

“Oh yeah, I will,” Virgil nodded. “Just get back here as soon as you can. And please, for the love of all that is good, do not give Patton any candy or sweets or sugar of any kind-”  
Virgil was cut off as Roman suddenly started making sounds into the phone, in between which, saying, “What was that? Sorry, we’re breaking up! I’m losing you!”

“Roman, I spilt my soda!” Patton’s voice called from the background.

“What!” Virgil started to raise his voice again when the line suddenly went dead. He lowered his hand, looking up at the audience again, slowly, “He hung up on me.” Virgil looked like he wanted to say something else, but instead just walked off stage. He returned holding a note card and a kazoo, “So, Roman reminded me that we have to do the sonnets still. Shakespeare wrote one hundred and fifty-four sonnets and we condensed them onto this note card and I’m thinking that since we are still waiting for the others to get back, we would all read them one by one. So, we’ll start here,” he went to the first audience member in the square. “Start with this one. You’ll take it, read it, enjoy it, and then you’ll pass it next to you and you’ll pass it on and we’ll just go back and forth, all the way around and hopefully, by the time we get done, Roman and Patton will be back. So, start with this one, it’s really good.” Virgil walked back up on the stage, sat in the middle of the stage, back to the door, and started playing the Jeopardy waiting tune. After a minute, he noticed that the audience members of the row were passing the card fairly quickly, “Are you guys really reading them that fast?”

“Oh, we are,” the audience member confirmed, a smirk on his face.

But before Virgil could argue, another audience member raised his hand, “Excuse me? Why don’t you just read the sonnets to us? Wouldn’t that go faster than reading them individually?”

“Maybe, but I want you to enjoy them, savour them, and it allows me to stall-” Virgil was suddenly screamed as Roman grabbed him from behind. He and Patton had snuck in as Virgil was distracted by the audience member. Virgil looked up at them before exclaiming, “You’re back!”

“We’re back!” Patton helped pull Virgil to his feet, engulfing him in a hug. “And we are ready to do Hamlet! H-E-L-M-E-T!” Virgil, who had run off stage to grab the sonnets note card, and Roman joined in, but quickly trailed off, “H-E-L-M-E-T!” Patton turned back to the other two, “What’s that spell?”

“Helmet,” both said, unimpressed and slightly confused. 

“Gotta go put on my helmet!” Patton ran off the stage and behind the curtain.

Virgil turned to Roman, pointing an accusatory finger at him, “You gave him soda and probably candy.”

Roman started to say something in his defence before admitting, “True, but I also told him that if we did Hamlet, I would take him to Disney World.”

“We’re going to Disney World?” Virgil asked.

“Wh- No-” Roman started to say.

“We’re going to Disney World!” Virgil jumped up and down in excitement before running off the stage in the opposite direction of Patton. 

“I can’t aff-” Roman allowed himself to trail off before turning to the audience. “Right, where were we? Thirty-six plays down, one to go. Bob, could you please set the scene for perhaps the greatest play ever written in the English language. Helmet, the trag- Hamlet, the Tragedy of the Prince of Denmark. The place is Denmark. The battlements of Elsinore castle. Midnight. Two guards enter.” He quickly exited the stage. 


	8. Hamlet Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The crew starts Hamlet with minor mishaps along the way

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Death, ghosts, mention of incest, fart joke, hitting with a stick, fake slap, blink and you'll miss it sex joke, spoilers for Harry Potter book 7

Patton entered, wearing his helmet with the curly blonde wig underneath and carrying a large spear that was almost slightly too big. When Virgil entered from the other side carrying his own spear and wearing a baseball cap, Patton called out, “Who’s there?”

“Nay, answer me. Stand and unfold yourself,” Virgil tapped his own spear against Patton’s helmet before dramatically bowing.

“Long live the king!” Patton shouted, lifting his spear into the air.

“Bernardo!” Virgil lifted his spear as well.

“He,” Patton confirmed. “Tis now struck twelve. Get thee to bed, Fellatio.”

“Horatio,” Virgil stepped forward, tapping Patton’s helmet again. Patton lifted the front to get a better look, before dropping it as Virgil continued, “For this relief, much thanks.” As Patton started to leave, Virgil suddenly gasped. Roman entered, holding a long stick with a sheet attached to the other end, making spooky ghost noises. “Look where it comes!” Virgil said as both he and Patton tried to lean in for a closer look. 

“Mark it, Horatio,” Patton said. “It would be spoke to.”

“What art thou?” Virgil asked, poking at the ghost with his spear. “I pray thee, speak!”

“COCK-A-DOODLE-DOO!” Roman suddenly shouted, lifting one of his hands to show he was wearing a rooster sock puppet. He made much quieter clucking noises as he disappeared behind the curtain once again.

Virgil turned back to Patton once Roman exited, “Tis gone.”

“It was about to speak when the sock crew,” Patton turned to look back at where Roman had disappeared too with confusion evident on his face.

“Let us depart,” Virgil suggested. “And by my advice, let us impart what we have seen unto…”

“Hamlet, Prince of Denmark,” Patton joined in before both exited the stage. 

Roman stepped onto the stage wearing his Shakespearean hat and jacket. He posed in the middle of the stage before starting his monologue, “O that this too, too solid flesh would melt, thaw, and resolve itself into a dew. That it should come to this, but two months dead. So loving to my mother. Frailty, thy name is woman,” Roman suddenly turned and pointed at a guy in the audience. When the audience member confusedly pointed at himself, Roman continued, “Yeah, you! Married with my uncle, my father’s brother. The funeral baked meats did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables. I hate you, Mom!”

Virgil returned to the stage, calling out, “My lord!”

“Horatio!” Both Roman and Virgil dabbed before Roman continued, “Methinks I see my father.”

“Where my lord?” Virgil asked.

“In my mind’s eye, Horatio,” Roman sighed.

Virgil stepped forward, forcing one of Roman’s eyes open as he looked into it before stepping back and saying, “I don’t see him.” Roman stepped back, adjusting his hat as Virgil continued, “My lord, I think I saw him yesternight.”

“You saw who?” Roman asked.

“Your father, the king,” Virgil mimed a crown on his head, trying to get his point across.

“The king my father? But where was this?” Roman looked shocked.

“Upon the platform where we watched,” Virgil said with a smug smile.

“Tis very strange,” Roman admitted. “I will watch tonight. Perchance twill walk again. All is not well. Would the night were come.”

The stage lighting dropped to all blues. Virgil looked up in amazement with a whispered, “Dude!”

Roman started rubbing his arms, “The air bites shrewdly. It is very cold.”

“Look, my lord, it comes!” Virgil pointed off the stage as Patton entered carrying the ghost this time. 

“Angels and ministers of grace defend us!” Suddenly a horrible farting sound was heard on stage. Virgil stepped away from Roman, his nose plugged, as Roman muttered, “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.”

Even Patton had backed away, but he finally stepped on the stage, crying out in a ghostly wail, “Mark me!”

“Speak! I am bound to hear it!” Roman cried out, dropping to his knees.

“So art thou to revenge when thou shalt hear,” Patton said, hitting Roman with the stick every other word. Roman fell over and tried to scramble away, but the stage was too small and Patton just caught up to him, continuing, “If ever thou didst thy dear father love, revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.”  
“Murder?” Roman cried out as he continued to scramble.

“Murder!” Virgil shouted to the audience from the other side. 

“The serpent that did sting thy father’s life now wears his crown,” Patton wailed.

“My uncle?” Roman gasped in shock.

“Your uncle!” Virgil shouted, pointing at Roman. 

Patton finally let up, allowing Roman to get to his feet, as he continued, “Let not the royal bed of Denmark become a couch for incest!”

“Incest!” Roman shouted, still trying to stay out of reach of Patton.

“A couch!” Virgil shouted, completely ruining the repeating pattern.

“Adieu, Hamlet, remember me!” Patton hit Roman with the stick one last time, before exiting.

“Horatio, that was definitely my father. He hit me,” Roman said, pointing after where Patton had disappeared. 

“Remember me!” Patton wailed out from behind the curtains.

Roman turned to where the audience member he was shouting at earlier was sitting and ran off the stage to give them a hug, saying, “I’m sorry, Mom.”

When Roman returned to stage, Virgil said, “My lord, this is strange.”

Roman sighed, putting both hands on Virgil’s shoulders, “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. So-” Roman lifted one hand to fake-smack Virgil, “-piss off.”

Virgil gasped at him, one hand covering where the fake-smack would have hit him, “Not cool, dude!” He stomped off the stage.

Roman turned back to his audience, “I shall think meet to put an antic disposition on. The time is out of joint. O cursed spite that ever I was born to exit right!” Roman started to exit one way before stepping back on the stage, heading in the opposite direction, shouting, “Other right! This is a circle!”

There was a brief pause before the sound of a walker being used was heard. Virgil emerged from behind the curtain, moving slowly with the walker, wearing a long coat. When he eventually made it to centre stage, he growled, “Neither a borrower nor a lender be, Millennials.” 

Patton burst out from behind the curtain, screaming very high-pitched, wearing an ill-fitting blouse and skirt and his blonde curly wig. He ran around the stage, kicking at the walker in Virgil’s hands a couple of times. He finally stopped, holding his skirt up as Virgil just sighed and asked, “How now, Ophelia. What’s the matter?”

“My lord!” Patton started in his high-pitched voice, circling Virgil. “As I was sewing in my closet, Lord Hamlet, with his doublet all unbraced-” Patton pulled his shirt forward, undoing the velcro in the back, now having to hold it in place, “-no hat upon his head-” He tossed his wig into the air, ignoring it as it fell to the side of the stage, “-pale as his shirt, both knees knocking together-” Patton lifted his skirt up to knock his own knees together, “-and with a look so piteous in purport as if he had been loosed-” Patton let go of both the skirt and the shirt, causing them to fall and having to gather them both back up, “-out of hell to speak of horrors, he comes before me.”

Virgil sighed and leaned forward to brush the dirt off Patton’s skirt, muttering, “Gonna need to get that dry cleaned.” He stepped back, clearing his throat before asking, “Mad for thy love?”

Patton shrugged, “I know not.”

“Why this is the very ecstasy of love,” Virgil said a strange smile on his face.

“Well then, I’ve been doing it wrong,” Patton said. 

Virgil blinked at him for a moment before sighing and stepping away from his walker, “I have found the cause of Hamlet’s lunacy. Since brevity is the soul of wit, I will be brief. He is mad.”

Virgil turned back to Patton to see Patton looking down at the walker and back up at him. “Have you been lying to me this whole time?” Patton asked as Virgil lunged forward to grab the walker again.

Before Virgil could answer, Roman burst out of the curtains, holding a book and screaming at the audience, acting like a strange madman. Virgil patted Patton’s back, urging him to leave as he took another step forward to deal with a still screaming Roman.

“How goes it, my lord?” Virgil tried, but Roman gave one long scream at one audience member, overpowering Virgil’s question. Roman jumped onto the stage and started making gorilla noises at Virgil, who merely tried again, “How goes it, my lord?”  
“Well, well, well,” Roman says, his voice slightly off to fake a mad man’s voice.

“And what do you read, my lord?” Virgil asked, leaning forward to turn the book that Roman had open upside-down right-side up.

“Words, words, words. Words!” With that last word, Roman slammed the large book shut, almost starring Virgil down.

“Do you know me, my lord?” Virgil asked with a smirk.

“Oh, I know you well. You are a fishmonger!” Roman turned around and hopped down to sit on the side of the stage, staring at one audience member intensely.

Virgil turned to the opposite side, quietly saying, “Though this be madness, there is method in it.” Virgil turned around to see that Roman had gotten back up and was looking between him and the walker like Patton was earlier. Virgil quickly grabbed the walker again.

“Daddy!” Patton shouted from behind the curtain. “The players are here and they want to do a play-within-a-play and I don’t know what that is, so you’d better talk to them right away!”

“My lord,” Virgil said, turning back to Roman with a bow. Roman bowed back before dabbing and practically pushing Virgil off the stage. 

As soon as Virgil was out of sight, Roman turned back to the audience and returns to his normal voice, “I am but mad north-northwest. When the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw. I’ll have these players play something like the murder of my father before mine uncle. I’ll observe the king’s looks. If he do but blench, I know my course. The play’s the thing wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king!” Roman dramatically whips a dagger out of his pants and drops to one knee, holding it in the air. The lights darken to a single spotlight on centre stage, about three feet to Roman’s right. Roman looks down at it and quickly scoots over into the light. Laughter comes from one corner and Roman turns to see Virgil had come out and was laughing on a stool, watching him. “Do you mind?” Roman asks him. “This is a monologue. Very serious.” Virgil nods and makes a go-ahead motion, so Roman turns back into position, shouting as dramatically as he can, “To be, or not to be! That is the question!” Virgil bursts out laughing again, causing some of the audience to start laughing with him. Roman turns back with a look, “Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the laughter of you folk!” More laughing starts up, from the other side of the audience, causing Roman to whip around to look at them, “And by opposing end them.” He stabs himself in the hand with his fake dagger. By this point, practically the entire audience is laughing, “To die! To sleep! Perchance to nap! This is too much!” Roman suddenly throws himself back down into a sitting position, taking off his hat and jacket as violently as he could. 

“Lights! Bob, lights please!” Patton and Logan, who had finally returned, ran onto the stage. “What happened? What’s wrong?” Patton asked, kneeling next to him.

“He laughed at me!” Roman cried, pointing at one of the audience members at random.

“No, he’s laughing adjacent to you,” Logan tried to explain.

“This, this is a circle,” Roman swung his arms around to emphasize his point. He turned to lock eyes with the audience member again, “That man right there, he was laughing at me.”

Patton tried to get his attention again, “That’s just Caleb. He’s been going through some things and he’s just stressed and blowing off steam.”

“He laughed at me just like he laughed at Dobby! You monster!” Roman cried out again.

Logan sighed and turned back to the audience, “Audience, this is a heavy-duty emotional speech and frankly, Roman hasn’t been himself lately-”

“Dobby is a free elf!” Roman screamed from the curled up position he had taken. 

Patton stood up and crept over to Logan, “Who is Dobby?” 

“That creepy little creature from the Harry Potter books-” Logan started.

“Creature!” Roman pushed himself back to his feet and started shouting at Logan, who was leaning back, while Patton quickly shuffled out of the line of fire. “Excuse me! Dobby is a house elf and he is a free elf thanks to the generosity of Harry Potter who freed who from the tyranny of the reign of the Malfoys. Do you know what he had to do day in and day out as a slave? He had to run away to help Harry! He risked everything to help Harry! And you know what Harry did? He went to Hogwarts anyway! Dobby risks his life to warn Harry of the danger he is in, and Harry is just like, ‘Oh, I want to go to Hogwarts. Blah blah blah.’”

“You’ve watched Harry Potter?” Patton finally speaks up as Roman pauses for a breath.

Roman gasps. “I’ve read the books too, you insensitive-” Roman cuts himself off as his voice cracks and he turns away to cover his eyes with his arm.

“Wait, so all that talk about ‘screw media, embrace the bard,’ that was all bs?” Logan asked.

“Well, no-” Roman started.

Patton cut him, a look of betrayal on his face, “Roman, you’re not even a preeminent Shakespearean scholar, are you?” As Roman looked down at the floor, Patton raised his voice as he asks again, “Are you?”  
Roman let out a defeated sob, “I’m not even post-eminent!” He drops back down to the floor.

Logan steps forward to crouch next to Roman, “But you took that course.”

“I didn’t finish it!” Roman wailed.

“I saw your certificate!” Logan tried.

Roman just looked up at him, tears in his eyes, “Logan, you’re an engineer, not an art major. I made it in Photoshop!”

Logan got back to his feet, taking a couple of steps back, “I don’t even know who you are anymore!”

Roman slowly reached out, grabbing his jacket, holding it to his chest, “I thought Shakespeare would be cool. That is would be full of fast cars and hot guys in codpieces and pink tights. But there’s just Virgil!” Virgil, who had started to stand up, sat back down, looking utterly stung and offended. Roman continued, “It’s just all so cold and lifeless. But in Harry Potter, Dobby is so great and kind. But then he had to go and die! And his stone says: Here lies Dobby, a free elf!” Roman fell to his side, fully crying by now. 

Patton turned to where Virgil was sitting, “Well, I hope you’re happy. You broke Roman.” Patton turned back to the audience, “Ladies, Gentle-” Patton is cut off from another loud wail from Roman and turns to see Logan standing next to him, looking utterly perplexed about what to do. “I’m really sorry, but we’re going to have to skip the ‘to be or not to be’ speech,” Patton then turns back to Roman, coaxing him to his feet and helping him off the stage. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pssst, fun fact: The girl who said the line in our version, "I saw your certificate," is a chemical engineering student. I had to keep that joke.


	9. A Floridian Analysis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time to step back and add some layers to the characters of Hamlet, mainly Ophelia

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: I think it can be considered slightly sexist, bad Freud analysis because Freud sucks, more sexual jokes, audience participation

“Wait,” Logan called out after them, “we can’t skip ‘to be or not to be,’ it’s the most famous speech in all of Shakespeare.”

“Sure we can,” Virgil said as he finally stepped on stage.

“What, why?” Logan asked, offended.

“Think about it,” Virgil poked Logan’s head. “Hamlet is supposed to be killing his uncle and suddenly he’s talking about killing himself. Where did that come from? It completely weakens his character.”

“Virgil, you don’t understand. The speech makes his character more complex. The layers give it meaning!” Logan tried to explain.

“The layers make it sucky!” Virgil snapped back. “All those long speeches with big words nobody understands! Like what about that one,” he starts to monotone, giving no life to the speech, “‘I have of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercise. And indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory. This most excellent canopy, the air, look at you. This brave o’erhanging firmament, the majestic roof fretted with golden fire, why it appears to me no more than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is man. How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty, in form and moving how express and admirable. In action, how like an angel. In apprehension, how like a god. The beauty of the world, the paragon of animals and yet to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me.’” Virgil stopped and looked down at Logan who had sat before him, entranced, and says with delight, “Hey, that didn’t completely suck!”

Roman bursts out from behind the curtains to do a roll onto the stage, and stopped in front of Virgil, both hands clutching his leg, and whispers, “That was beautiful, man!”

“See you two?” Logan stood up and pulled Roman off a slightly disgusted Virgil. He placed his arms around both of them, “That speech is emotional and intellectual. The two can live side by side.”

“Like you and Patton?” Virgil asked.

“Um, I guess,” Logan answered.

“So when I play Ophelia, I could add some layers?” Patton asked where he was stepping onto the stage.

“That would be appreciated,” Logan dropped his arms from the other two to step closer to Patton. “She’s not all screams and vomit, you know. There’s something going on inside her pretty little wig.”

“It’s a sore subject,” Patton muttered. 

“But,” Virgil stepped up next to Patton, “Ophelia is complicated. I bet in the ‘Get thee to a nunnery’ scene, she’s probably thinking stuff and feeling stuff at the same time!”

“Actually, we should do that scene really quick,” Roman spoke up, having finally recovered.

“But we were just talking about layers! If Ophelia is that complex, we need to peel open her brain like an onion!” Patton mimed opening an onion as Virgil took a step back in disgust.

“Ew!” Roman whined.

“No, no, that’s great! Patton, you’re actually having a rare moment of lucidity. We could explicate Ophelia’s id, ego, and superego. Do a sort of Freudian analysis,” Logan said, excitedly. 

“Yes, a Floridian analysis!” Logan looked like he wanted to say something about Patton’s mispronunciation, but thought better of it. “We can divide Ophelia’s brain into three different parts. Okay, I’m Ophelia, but one of you needs to play the Id. Virgil?”

“Um, no, I am flattered you thought of me, but I got a new dog that I need to walk. And I have a paper I need to finish writing. And I broke my leg,” Virgil just collapses to the ground. 

“Oh, well, Virgil is obviously incapable. Logan?” Patton turned to him.

“I’m so sorry, but somebody needs to keep this on track or we’ll never get through it,” Logan simply stated.

When Patton pointed at Roman, Roman just said, “Hello? I’m Hamlet.”

Patton huffed, “Fine. I’ll go get one of my better friends to do it.” Patton stomped off stage and grabbed an audience member and pulled him onto the stage.

“Patton!” Virgil tried to protest. “You can’t just bring some bozo onstage to play Ophelia’s brain!”

“He’s not a bozo, he’s one of my very best friends!” Patton defended the man before turning and asking in a hushed voice, “Okay, what’s your name?”

“Thomas,” the man replied. “Your brother.”

“Well, do you mind if we call you ’Bob?’ It’s a little easier to remember,” Patton asks.

“Fine,” Thomas said, rolling his eyes.

“Okay, Bob, this is a very important scene,” Patton started to explain, leading Thomas over to the black wooden box that Roman had brought on stage. “What’s happening is… um… Logan, would you like to tell Bob what is happening?”

“Sure,” Logan stepped forward to provide exposition. “Bob, it’s very simple. Hamlet is playing out sublimated childhood neuroses, displacing repressed Oedipal desires into sexualized anger towards Ophelia-”

“Hamlet is being a prick,” Roman cuts him off with a dramatic handwave.

“Exactly,” Logan continues, undeterred. “Now, the id represents the raw, animal power of the individual, which Patton has effectively encapsulated in Ophelia’s trademark scream.” Patton lets out an Ophelia-style shriek. “Thank you, Patton,” Logan says, unfazed unlike the other three people on stage.

“This is clearly going over his head!” Virgil protested again.

“Just give him a chance!” Patton said, covering Thomas’s ears for a minute before continuing to explain it. “So Hamlet gets all worked up and tells Ophelia to get out of his life. He says, ‘Get thee to a nunnery.’ And in response, Ophelia’s Id screams. Let’s give it a try.”

“I’ll give you your cue. Just let me step into character.” Roman takes a deep breath before saying in a deep voice, “Get thee to a nunnery!”

Thomas pauses for a second before screaming, although nowhere near as strong as Patton’s scream.

“Did you hear that, Virgil? I thought that was really good,” Patton called out to Virgil who was still sulking on the other side of the stage.

“Yeah, it was okay,” Logan shrugged.

“No, it sucked!” Virgil argued.

“Virgil!” Roman gasped, putting one arm around Thomas. “Give him a break! I mean, okay, he’s not an actor, frankly, it shows.” Thomas gave an offended huff. “But I think he showed a lot of heart. A lot of courage. A lot of, as Shakespeare would say, chutzpah!”

“And to get a better scream going, we need to get everybody involved!” Patton jumped with excitement. “You know, create a supportive environment for Bob here!”

“We could divide the rest of the audience up into Ophelia’s Ego and Superego,” Logan suggested.

“Fine, let’s just get on with it,” Virgil moaned, but hauled himself to his feet. “I’ll get the ego. Bob, house lights!” Virgil stepped off the stage and hauled another audience member to her feet. “Now you’re playing the part of Ophelia’s Ego. At this point in the play, her ego is flighty. It’s confused-”

“It’s an ego on the run!” Patton jumped in.

“So why don’t we symbolize this, Bob, by- oh, do you mind if we call you ‘Bob?’ We’re going to do it anyway because those two can’t remember names worth anything- we’ll symbolize this by having you run back and forth by the stage in front of Ophelia,” Virgil gave one quick run as an example for the audience member. “Will you give it a try? Just go!”

“Go go go!” Roman and Patton joined in cheering as the audience member ran back and forth. 

Virgil stopped her after a couple of laps, “Just like that.”

“Wow, what an egomaniac!” Patton laughed. When no one else laughed, he turned to one of the four sides of the audience, “Okay, you guys are going to be Ophelia’s Unconscience.”

“Unconscious,” Logan quickly corrected.

“Really? Oh, now the Unconscious is like the watery depths of Ophelia’s soul, right, Logan?” When Logan gave a reluctant nod, Patton dived back into the explanation, “And she’s tossed about by the tides and the currents of her emotions. So all of you, hands in the air, wave them back and forth, and say ‘Maybe, maybe not, maybe, maybe not.’” Patton did it along with the audience, using his Ophelia voice to join in the audience. After a couple rounds, he indicated for them to stop, saying, “That was good.”

“Wait, but you,” Roman stepped forward, pointing at one audience member near the back that wasn’t really participating. “What was your problem? You were not participating with the rest of the group. You know what that means, don’t you? You’re going to have to do it-”

“All. By. Your. Self!” both Patton and Roman shouted.

“Hands up!” Patton lifted his hands with the called-out audience member. “Don’t worry, nobody’s looking.”

“He’s lying, everybody’s looking,” Virgil called out as he finally stepped back on the stage.

‘Maybe, maybe not, maybe, maybe not,” Patton did the chant again with the audience member before lowering his arms with a large smile. “I feel a lot of love in this room!” 

“I feel a lot of something,” Logan muttered before jumping back in explanation. “Now why don’t we get everybody else to be Ophelia’s Superego. The superego is that jumble of voices inside your head that dominate your moral and ethical behaviour. It’s very powerful, very difficult to shake. And quite frankly, some people never will.”

“Sort of like Catholicism!” Roman said.

Logan just looked at him for a moment before Patton jumped in. “Okay, let’s divide the Superego into three parts. Everybody in this section,” he indicated the second of the four sides of the audience, “you will be Section ‘A.’ Everybody in this section,” he indicated the third of the four sections, “you will be Section ‘B.’ And this last group,” he indicated the fourth of the four sections, “you will be Section ‘C.’” Patton turned and ran back to Section A, “Now Section A, you are the masculine part of Ophelia’s brain, the voice of all the men in her life that have been holding her back. We’ll use Hamlet’s line for this. I’d like you to say, ‘Get thee to a nunnery!’ Can you try it?”

“Get thee to a nunnery!” Section A shouted.

“Section A, that was awful,” Virgil said, appalled. 

“C’mon people, work with us on this,” Roman stepped up. “We want it very loud and very strident. Section A?”

“Get thee to a nunnery!” Section A shouted with more enthusiasm.

“Well, much less totally pathetic,” Virgil said with fake cheerfulness.

“Okay, Section B,” Roman turned to the next section. “Let’s make you the voice of Ophelia’s ‘inner ho.’”

“Freud would call it the ‘libido,’” Logan stepped forward to explain.

“Libido, ho, whatever,” Roman waved him off. “You’re the part of Ophelia that wants to bang Hamlet! So, um…”

Roman looked over to Logan for help. Logan sighed and suggested, “Why don’t we use a line that’s straight out of the Shakespearean text, ‘Paint an inch thick!’”

“Perfect! Let’s try it!” Patton jumped in and said with the audience, “Paint an inch thick!”

“Section A, you could learn something from Section B,” Virgil said as he followed Patton to the last audience section.

“Section C, you’re the most important of them all! You are going to make Ophelia important to the twenty-first century,” Patton said.

“Interesting,” Logan said. “So maybe she wants power, but she doesn’t want to lose her femininity.”

“Yes!” Patton shouted. “She wants to be a corporate executive, but also raise a family.”

“Yes!” Roman joined in, his excitement levels reaching Patton’s. “She’s tired of being pushed around and just says, ‘Look, cut the crap, Hamlet, my biological clock is ticking and I want babies now!’”

The other three stared at him for a moment before Virgil spoke up, “That was super passionate Romano. Why don’t we just have them say that?”

“Okay!” Roman turned to the section. “Section C, ‘Cut the crap, Hamlet, my biological clock is ticking, and I want babies now!’” 

“I don’t know about you, but I thought that was a fantastic C-section,” Patton laughed as he elbowed Virgil. “So now, Bob,” Patton turned back to Thomas. “We’re going to get all this Floridian stuff going at once: the ego, the superego…”

“The unconscious…” Logan contributed.

“The biological clock is ticking…” Virgil muttered.

“Now your job as an actor is to take all of these voices and blend them deep within your soul,” Roman crouched down next to Thomas to demonstrate with his hands. “We’re going to whip the whole audience into a mighty frenzy and then stop everything all at once. All attention goes to you, and at that moment of truth you let out a scream that epitomizes Ophelia’s Id.”

“Oh, he is so excited!” Patton squealed.

“Okay, everyone take a deep breath and let it out,” Virgil said to the whole audience. 

“And remember,” Roman cut in, “no matter what happens…”

“Act natural,” all four said.

“Okay, Bob go!” Virgil shouted at the ego to start running.

“Unconscious arms up!” Logan raised his arms with them. “Maybe, maybe not, maybe, maybe not.”

“Section A!” Roman shouted. “Get thee to a nunnery!”

“Section B!” Patton shouted. “Paint an inch thick!”  
“Section C! Cut the crap, Hamlet, my biological clock is ticking and I want babies now!” Roman shouted. 

Both Roman and Patton ran back and forth between the three sections, encouraging them to keep shouting. Logan continued to work with the ‘Unconscious,’ while Virgil shouted at the Ego to run faster and faster and faster. After about 30 seconds of absolute chaos, suddenly Patton stopped in the middle of the stage next to Thomas and cried out over the mayhem, “STOOOOOOOOP!” All four turned towards Thomas, a single spotlight hitting him as the theatre goes dead quiet except for the loudest, longest screech that Thomas produced filling the air. 

When the scream died down, the audience burst into applause as Roman shouted, “Alright everyone! Let’s hear it for Bob and Bob!” 

Roman, Virgil, and Patton quickly exited as Logan stays to say, “Well, that was certainly something. But we digress. Back to Hamlet, Act Three, Scene Two, the pivotal ‘play-within-a-play scene,’ in which Hamlet discovers conclusive evidence that his uncle murdered his father.”


	10. Hamlet part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time to finish Hamlet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Lots of fake death, Roman is faking being Hamlet who is faking being  
> Also, this is probably the longest chapter. They take forever to get through this part

Logan exits as Roman reenters, having redressed as Hamlet. He stops centre stage, looks at the audience for a second, before dramatically putting his foot upon the box where Thomas had been sitting earlier that was still there. “Speak the speech, I pray you,” Roman began, “as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue. Suit the action to the word, the word to the action, and hold, as ‘twere, the mirror up to nature.” Roman held up one hand in front of him and started fixing his hair as if it really was a mirror. Virgil came on the stage, back in his long coat and walker, and stops beside Roman and watches him for a second in disbelief. When he cleared his throat, Roman immediately straightens back up, both feet on the ground, and asks, “Will my lord hear the play?”

“Aye, and the king, too, presently,” Virgil sweeps one arm out towards Patton who was coming on the stage wearing a black shirt with an oversized Shakespearean collar and a tiara. 

With a flick of his wrist, a trumpet fanfare plays. Patton steps towards Roman and asks in a dramatically deep voice, “And now, how does my cousin Hamlet, and my son?”

“A little more than kin and a little less than kind,” Roman snarks back.

“This answer means nothing to me. These words are not mine,” Patton replied.

“Take a seat, my lord,” Virgil called out, indicating the front row of the audience. 

“Very well. You!” Patton stepped off the stage and pointed to a random audience member. “Give me your seat! The king wishes to park his royal rump!” The audience member looks at the empty seat next to him and then back up at Patton before scooting over so Patton could sit once again among the audience. 

“My lord,” Virgil said, looking and sounding utterly dead inside by this point, “the Royal Theater of Denmark is proud to present ‘The Murder of Gonzago.’” He swept an arm out to show Roman, still in his Hamlet costume, and Logan with sock puppets on their hands, sitting behind the black box. 

“Hey, a puppet show!” Patton clapped. “I love them wacky puppets!”

“My lord, Act One,” Virgil stepped out of the way as Roman and Logan lifted their hands up. One was dressed as a queen, one as a king, and they made incomprehensible sounds at each other before the puppets started kissing and getting more frisky. “Intermission!” Virgil shouted, hobbling back in front of the puppet show.

Roman pulled his queen puppet off his hand with an offended look, before turning to ask Patton, “How likes my lord the play?”  
“The lady doth protest too much, methinks!” Patton burst into laughter turning to the audience member he displaced for a high-five, who just looked at him. “He doesn’t get it,” Patton said, turning back to the show.

“My lord, Act Two,” Virgil sighed, stepping out of the way once again.

“Gesundheit! I’m on fire!” Patton turned to the audience member on the other side who obligated his high five. “They’re with me!”

Logan lifted the king puppet back up and said out of the side of his mouth, “I’m the king and I’m going to go to sleep now.” He starts to make exaggerated snoring sounds.

Roman lifted up his new puppet, which resembles Patton’s costume, with a “Duuu Dun.” The puppet looks around before locking eyes on the sleeping king puppet. “Duuuu Dun,” the puppet moves towards the king as Patton narrows his eyes and leans closer. “Duuu Duuu Duuu Duuu,” the puppet jumps onto the king puppet, miming stabbing him. 

Patton leapt to his feet, back onto the stage, and snatched the puppets away from Roman and Logan, while Virgil shouted, “The king rises!”

“Give o’er the play! Lights! Away!” Patton shouted.

“I’ll take the ghost’s word for a thousand pounds!” Roman started to yell, but Patton and Logan quickly rushed off the stage while Virgil stepped in between them and a miffed Roman.

“My lord,” Virgil quickly said. “The queen would speak with you in her closet.”

“Then I will come to my mother’s closet,” Roman said, a little confused, but stepping behind Virgil anyway. 

Virgil hobbled to the other side of the stage, speaking directly to the audience, “Behind the arras, I’ll convey myself to hear the process.” He pulls a small yellow lace piece and drapes it over his head, which it is just big enough to cover, and crouches behind the walker. 

Patton stepped back onto the stage, having changed to a long purple skirt and a purple bodice with pearls, but still wearing the tiara. Roman turned to him and asked, “Now, Mother, what’s the matter?”

“Hamlet,” Patton said in his falsetto voice, slightly hunched over, “thou hast thy father much offended.”

“Mother,” Roman drew his dagger out of his pants for the millionth time, “you have my father much offended!’ 

“What wilt thou do? Thou wilt not murder me? Help!” Patton cried out.

Virgil jumped up, still covered, “Help! Help!”

“How now? A rat!” Roman turned towards Virgil, allowing Patton to run off stage. Roman jumped forward and stabbed Virgil with the fake dagger.

Virgil falls forward over his walker, moaning, “Oh no, that will hurt!”

“Dead for a ducat, dead!” Roman smirks as he turns away and licks the dagger, before returning it to his pants. 

Virgil hobbled off stage as Patton entered again dressed once more as the uncle. “Now, Hamlet, where’s Polonius?” he asked Roman.

“At supper,” Roman replied.

“At supper? Where?” Patton asked, confused.

“Not where he eats, but where he is eaten,” Roman pulled the dagger back out and pretends to quickly naw on it. 

Logan stepped back on the stage, wearing a beret and a red coat with gold cord holding it closed. 

“Oh no, it’s Laertes!” both Roman and Patton cry out. 

“Son of Polonius,” Patton said.

“Brother to Ophelia!” Roman continued, before turning to step off the stage.

“And a snappy dresser!” Patton stepped forward to complement the coat. 

“Oh, why thank you,” Logan started to accept it, before stepping back with a, “Woah! Oh, thou bile king! Give me my father! I’ll be revenged for Polonius’s murder!” As Logan finished, Patton turned and ran off the stage, leaving Logan to trail off, “Hey, I was talking to you.” Logan started to reach down to fix his coat, but a loud scream is heard from backstage. Logan looks up and around, wildly, “How now, what noise is this?” Another scream is heard and Logan makes wild indicating movements with his arms, taking as long as possible to say, “Dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia!”

Virgil ran onto the stage, having put on Patton’s Ophelia dress, while Patton did his Ophelia scream from behind the curtain, and practically threw himself onto a slightly shocked Logan. “The bore him barefaced on the bier,” Virgil sobbed before pushing himself off to say in a much more upbeat tone, “with a hey-nonny-nonny, hey-nonny!” He grabbed onto Logan’s arm to cry, “And in his grave rained many a tear.” Virgil threw himself behind Logan to say, “With a hey-nonny-nonny, ha-cha-cha-cha.” Logan stomped to the other side of the stage in disbelief while crying, “Fare you well my dove. I’m mad!” He turned to see Logan had gotten away and ran forward to grab him again, “I’m out of my tiny little mind!” Virgil then lets go of Logan and turned to where Thomas was sitting in the audience, “See, this is acting.” He then started to sob again, “Here’s rue for you, and rosemary for remembrance and I would have given you violets, but they withered all when my father died, you bastard!” Virgil suddenly stopped, swaying slightly and put one hand up to his mouth, “I’m starting to feel a little nauseous.”

“I gotcha!” Patton called out from where he stepped out from behind the curtain and fake vomited on the people right there. He gives Virgil a cheerful thumbs up and disappears again.

Logan shook his head and turned back to Virgil and asked, “Why are you up here instead of Patton?”

“Because the costume change was really hard for him and I let him down earlier. Remember we talked about this,” Virgil answered, struggling to fix the bodice part of the dress that was starting to fall off.

Logan sighed and stepped back to the audience, “Hamlet comes back-”

“Hey Logan, what’s the next scene with Ophelia?” Virgil interrupted, stepping forward.

“There are no more scenes with Ophelia. Hamlet comes back-” Logan tried to step away, but Virgil stepped up to interrupt him again. 

“But I think I’ve got it figured out, how Patton and Roman do this. I got layers, sort of,” Virgil was struggling to retie the skirt on that had come loose.

“That’s all Shakespeare wrote. Hamlet comes back-” Logan tried again.

“Well, what happens to her?” Virgil interrupted again, concern lacing his voice. 

Logan looked at him for a moment before admitting, “She drowns.”

“Oh,” Virgil looked down for a second before realization lights up his face and he said, “Oh! I got this!” He ran off the stage and disappeared behind the curtains.

Logan sighed and actually started, “What would I undertake to show myself my father’s son in deed more than in words? To-”

He was suddenly cut off by Virgil crying, “Here I go!” as he ran back on the stage and throws a cup of water at his own face, screaming, and falling down, seemingly dead.

Logan stared at him for a moment before saying, “Ophelia, guys, gals, and nonbinary pals.” The audience burst into applause as Virgil got up, curtsied, and exited at last.

When the applause died down, Logan continued, “-to cut his throat in the church. Aye, and to that end, I’ll anoint my sword with an unction so mortal that where it draws blood no cataplasm can save the thing from this compulsion.” He stopped to laugh and say, “I don’t know what it means either.” 

Logan exited the stage as Roman came back on and sat on the edge of it, a plastic skull in his hands. He did two backwards rolls across the stage, sitting on the other side, and said, “This skull had a tongue in it, and could sing once.” He did another roll so he was now laying in centre stage and lifted the skull above him, “And then came juice cleanse.” He sat back up and gave the skull a kiss on the cheek, “Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him-” Roman whipped his head around suddenly, “But soft! Here comes the queen. Couch me awhile, and mark.” He scrambled over the edge of the stage and peeks, watching as Logan re-enters, carrying a large, stuffed dummy, with Patton, who was dressed as the queen again, but with no tiara.

“Lay her in the earth,” Logan cried as he laid the dummy gently on the stage. “And from her fair and unpolluted flesh, may violets spring.”

“Sweet to the sweet,” Patton chimed in.

Logan leaned down over the dummy as if grieving deeply, “Hold off the earth awhile, till I have caught her once more in mine arms!” 

Roman jumped onto the stage, abandoning the skull, crying, “What is he whose grief bears such an emphasis? This is I, Hamlet the great Dane!” Roman dropped to his knees and crawled over to Logan and tries to yank the dummy out of Logan’s arms who refuses to let go, resulting in a brief tug-of-war.

“Gentlemen! Hamlet! Laertes!” Patton tried to protest.

“The devil takes thy soul,” Logan snarled as he let go of the dummy, which bonked Roman in the head. 

Roman drops the dummy, which Patton scoops up and takes off the stage. Roman crawled across the stage as he growled, “I will fight with him until my eyelids no longer wag. The cat will mew, the dog will have his day.” He jumped back to his feet and held out his hand, “Give us the foils!”

“Come, one for me!” Logan held out his hand as well.

Patton reentered and handed them each a plastic sword in their left hands, “Now be careful. Those are sharp.”

“Come, sir!” Roman shouted.

“Come, my lord!” Logan responded and they both very badly bat at each other’s swords. 

Roman finally lunged forward and hit Logan with his sword. At Logan’s cry of pain, Roman called out, “One!”

“No!” Logan protested. 

“Judgment?” Roman asked.

Patton entered, still wear the queen’s skirt, but having put on the tiara and the uncle’s shirt, calling out, “A hit, a hit, a very palpable hit.”

“What are you wearing?” Logan whispered to him.

“Layers? You said Virgil and I couldn’t switch parts anymore and these costumes take awhile to change,” Patton tried to explain. He then cleared his throat and offered the goblet in his hand to Roman, “Hamlet, here’s to thy health. Drink off this cup.”

“Nay, set it by awhile, Uncle, Father, Mother, whatever you are!” Roman shouted in confusion. As Patton left, he turned back to Logan, “Why Laertes, I see you have worn your red coat so that I cannot see you bleed.”

“Why Hamlet, I see you have worn your brown pants,” Roman looked down at his pants and then back up at Logan with an offended gasp while Logan just smirked at him. 

“Well, I will let you in on a little secret before we continue. I am not left-handed!” Roman dramatically lunged forward to strike Logan again. He called out, “Another hit! What say you?”

Logan looked down at where the sword was still stuck between his arm and his torso and admits, “A touch. A touch, I do confess.”

Roman snatched the sword that Logan was still holding out of his hand, “I’m going to take yours, I like it better.”

Patton entered again, still wearing the tiara and skirt, but no costume shirt and holding the goblet in the air, “The queen carouses to thy fortune, Hamlet!”

“Madam, do not drink,” Logan gasped trying to reach for the cup.

“I will, my lord. I pray you pardon me,” Patton walked off the stage, still guzzling the drink.

Logan turned to the audience, whispering, “It is the poisoned cup! It is too late.”

Roman turned back towards Logan, “Come for the third Laertes!” The two started to duel again, but when both went to lunge forward, they both got each other’s swords stuck between their arms and torsos and fell to the ground. Roman’s head popped up as Patton stepped back on, “How does the queen?”

“She swoons to see thee bleed,” Logan moaned from the ground.

“No, the drink! I am poisoned,” Patton briefly vomited on a couple of audience members, while Roman pushed himself to his feet. 

Roman stepped forward to grab Patton’s hand and spin him so he headed off the stage, saying, “Oh villainy! Treachery! Seek it out!”

“It is here, Hamlet!” Logan cried from the ground. When Roman returned to kneel by him, he said, “Here I lie, never to rise again. I can no more. The king. The king’s to blame.”

Patton stepped back onto the stage, having put the uncle’s shirt back on over the skirt. Roman picked up the sword lying by Logan and snarled, “The follow my mother you incestuous, cross-dressing Dane!” He stabs Patton, who immediately falls to the ground.

Roman drops back down beside Logan who laments, “Forgive me, Hamlet. I am justly killed by my own treachery.” Logan’s hand drops to his side.

Roman kisses Logan’s other hand that he had scooped up and says, “Heaven make thee free of it. I follow thee.” He then pushes Logan off the stage, whispering, “Go! Go!” Logan scrambles off in slight shock. When Roman turns to Patton, he finds Patton already struggling to get off with his layers. As soon as they both clear the stage, the lights drop to a single spotlight that actually hits Roman this time. Roman throws himself back, holding himself up with one hand, the other dramatically tossed over his forehead. He holds the position for a moment before dropping and reaching one hand out, lamenting, “You that look pale and tremble at this chance that are but mutes, or audience to this act. If ever thou did’st hold me in thy hearts absent thee from felicity awhile. Draw thy breath in pain,” Roman threw himself back so that both legs were up in the air, “to tell my story. The rest is,” he paused long enough that his legs both dropped back to the ground, “silence.” Roman then mournfully, overdramatically groans and throws himself back and forth as the spotlight fades to blackout. Just before it completely darkened, he started groaning again, so the light came back up. The light started to fade again as he slowed down, but he groaned one last time, causing the light to come back up, but it quickly faded out as he finally died.


	11. Speedrun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How fast can Hamlet be performed? We're about to find out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Fake death, running lines so fast your head will spin

As the lights came back up, Patton, Logan, and Virgil joined Roman on stage, bowing and saying, “Thank you,” as the audience applauded. The clapping died down, but Roman was still going around saying, “Thank you,” until Logan cleared his throat. Roman stopped, before turning back to the audience and adding, “We just wanted to say ‘thank you.’”

“Well, guys, gals, and nonbinary pals, that was The Complete Works of William Shakespeare,” Virgil said. “Thirty-seven plays in ninety-seven minutes.”

Logan glanced down at his watch before saying in surprise, “Hey! We actually finished a few minutes early.”

“Let’s do Hamlet again!” Patton squealed to the dismay of the other three.

“We don’t have time,” Logan tapped his watch.

“We do if we cut the layers,” Patton said with a point.

The other three looked at each other and grins appeared on their faces. “That’s right!” Roman exclaimed. “Audience, you shall have…”

“An encore!” all four shouted before they started scrambling around, resetting the props and the stage.

Logan stood in the middle to say, “I should make a brief announcement in case there are any children in the audience. There’s a lot of crazy props flying around, a lot of sharp swords. It may look like fun and games but keep in mind that this is very difficult and dangerous. We are trained professionals.”

“Do not try this at home!” all four say.

“Go to a friend’s house. Then they have to clean it up,” Virgil started to say, but Patton grabbed his arm as they and Logan quickly exited the stage. 

Roman remained at centre stage, still in his Hamlet costume, for a brief pause before starting, “Oh that this too too solid flesh would melt.”

Virgil jumped back on the stage, “My lord, I think I saw your father yesternight.”

“Would the night were come,” Roman responded.

“Mark me!” Patton jumped on, still wearing his tiara, making spooky fingers at the other two.

“Something is rotten in the state of Denmark,” Roman cried out as he hid behind Virgil.

“Revenge my murder,” Patton said before jumping off the stage.

“My lord, this is strange,” Virgil said.

“Well, there are more things in heaven and earth, so piss off,” Roman turned Virgil back around and fake-slapped him. As Virgil ran off stage, he continued, “To be or not to be, that is the-”

He is cut off by Patton running back onstage without his tiara, crying, “Good my lord!’

“Get thee to a nunnery!” Roman pushed Patton off, who ran back offstage screaming. “Now speak the speech trippingly on the tongue.”

“Give o’er the play,” Patton hopped back onstage in his tiara again.

“I’ll take the ghost’s word for a thousand pounds,” Roman spun around while Patton ran to the other side of the stage, hunched down this time. Virgil hopped back onstage, crouching, while Roman asked, “Now, Mother, what’s the matter?”

“Thou wilt not murder me. Help!” Patton quickly cried before hopping offstage.

“Help! Help!” Virgil jumped back to his feet.

“How now, a rat! Dead for a ducat, dead!” Roman pulled his dagger back out of his pants and stabbed Virgil who stumbled offstage. 

Logan hopped on in his place, “Now, Hamlet, where’s Polonius?”

“At supper,” Roman answered.

“Where?” Logan questioned again.

“Dead,” Roman plainly stated.

“Oh,” Logan looked confused, but was quickly distracted by Virgil running across the stage, screaming and splashing water in his face, and ran after him, crying, “Sweet Ophelia!”

Roman knelt by the stage, pulling out the skull, “Alas, poor Yorick! Juice cleanse. But soft, here comes the queen.”

Logan and Patton stepped back on the stage, Logan carrying the dummy, “Lay her in the earth.”

“Sweets to the sweet,” Patton added in.

“Hold off the earth awhile,” Logan cried.

Roman scuttled over and grabbed the dummy, holding it above him in the air in triumph, crying, “It is I, Omelet the cheese Danish!”

Logan leapt to his feet, shouting, “The devil take thy soul.”

Roman dropped the dummy, jumping to his feet as well, “Give us the foils.”

“One for me.” Logan held out his hand for a sword from Patton, but as soon as he received it, he shouted, “Oh, I am slain!” And fell to the ground, dead. 

Patton handed the other sword to Roman before shouting, “Oh, I am poisoned!” And fell to the ground as well. 

Roman held the sword above him, before shouting, “I follow thee. The rest is silence!” And he dropped as well.

Virgil jumped onto the stage, giving Roman a slight kick as the three quickly left, before holding up his hand to reveal eight finger puppets, saying, “Audience, we shall do it faster!” He then started the play, holding up each finger as the character spoke, “Oh that this too too solid flesh would melt. My lord, I think I saw your father yesternight. Would the night were come. Mark me! Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. Revenge my murder.” The ghost puppet came off. “Well there are more things in heaven and earth, so piss off,” the Horatio puppet came off. “To be or not to be, that is the- Good my lord! Get thee to a nunnery! AHHH! Now, speak the speech trippingly on the tongue. Give o’er the play. I’ll take the ghost’s word for a thousand pounds. Now, Mother, what’s the matter? Thou wilt not murder me. Help! Help! How now, a rat! Dead for a ducat, dead,” he violently flung the Polonius puppet off stage. “Now, Hamlet, where’s Polonius? At supper. Where? Dead. Sweet Ophelia! She’s dead!” Virgil pulled off the Ophelia puppet, kneeling beside it. “Here comes the queen! Alas, poor Yorick! But soft. Hold off the earth. It is I, Hamlet the great… Dane… dog,” Virgil put one arm over his eyes as he tried to remember what the words were, before giving up and just pushing himself to his knees to continue. “Give us the foils. Oh, I am slain!” He flings the Laertes puppet off. “Oh, I am poisoned!” He flings the queen puppet off. “You’re dead too!” He flings the uncle puppet off. “I follow thee, the rest is silence!” Virgil fell to the ground on his back, dead, his middle finger still up in the air with the Hamlet puppet on it. 

Roman, Patton, and Logan jumped back on the stage, each holding their deadly weapon. Patton pulled Virgil to his feet, handing him the cup he splashed himself with earlier, while Roman shouted, “Audience, we shall do it faster!” What preceded was all four of them saying their lines at once, ending with them all shouting in unison, “Oh! I am…” and however they died, falling at the same time.

They all got to their feet again for bows, but as the audience quieted, Logan shouted, “You’ve been a fantastic audience! We shall do it backwards!” 

The other three all turned and looked at him in shock. Patton finally said, “I thought we were out of time?”

“Screw the time, I’m having fun!” Logan said as he grabbed his sword and got back down to the ground. The other three looked at each other and shrugged, resetting themselves with Patton and Roman joining Logan on the ground and Virgil leaving the stage. 

“Last chance to back out,” Roman said.

“Nope, we’re doing this,” Logan said firmly.

“Can we make this quick? I want to go home,” Virgil said from his corner.

“It’s okay, Virgil. We’ll go as fast as we can,” Patton said from where he was laying down.

There was a brief pause before Roman jumped to his feet, shouting, “Silence is rest the. Thee follow I!”

Patton jumped up, “Poisoned am I Oh!”

“Slain am I Oh!” Logan jumped up, dropping his sword.

“Foils the us give!” Roman dropped his sword, before grabbing the dummy still laying off the side of the stage, throwing it back on the stage, “Dane the Hamlet, I is this.”

“Earth the off hold,” Logan cried, grabbing it.

“Sweet the to sweets,” Patton added.

“Earth the in her lay,” Logan said before handing it to Patton who ran offstage with it.

“Queen the comes here. Yorick poor, alas,” Roman said by his skull before dropping it back offstage.

“Ophelia sweet!” Logan cried out as Virgil ran onstage, spit water on him, and ran back off. Logan just spun around to yell at Roman, “Father my is where?”

Roman turned to where Virgil had jumped back up behind him, “Dead. Ducat a for dead,” swiping his dagger at him.

Virgil spun to where Logan had been before running off stage, crying, “Help!” before dropping to a crouch.

Patton ran back onstage, “Help! Me murder not wilt thou. Do thou wilt what.”

Roman tucked the dagger quickly into his pants as he asked, “Matter the what’s, mother now?”

Patton ran off the stage as Virgil hopped back up, “Sesir gnik eht!” He then ran off the stage as well.

“Tongue the on trippingly speech the speak,” Roman said to the audience before Patton ran screaming back onstage. “Nunnery a to thee get!” 

“Lord my good,” Patton shouted back before running back offstage.

“Be to not or be to,” Roman said, as Virgil ran spinning back onstage in front of him. “Off piss, Horatio, earth and heaven in things more are there.”

“Strange is this, lord my,” Virgil said.

Patton ran on stage to quickly yell, “Boo!” And ran back off.

“Denmark of state the in rotten is something,” Roman cried out.

Virgil turned back to face him, “Yesternight father your saw I think I, Lord my.” Then he ran after Patton.

“Melt would flesh solid too too this that,” Roman said.

The other three jumped back on stage with him, shouting, “Oh you thank!”

They bow as the lights finally blackout. When the lights came back up, all four were facing a different side of the audience and they allowed the applause to die down before continuing. 

“Audience, that was The Complete Works of William Shakespeare Abridged,” Roman announced.

“If you enjoyed the show, please tell both your friends,” Virgil added with a smirk.

“If you didn’t like it, you can come again tomorrow. We have another show and you just may change your mind,” Patton added.

“Thanks again for coming! I’m Logan-”

“I’m Roman-”

“I’m Virgil-”

“And I’m Patton! And we’re going to Disney World! Disney World! Disney World” the others started to join the chant as they ran out the door, but right before leaving, Roman realized what they were saying and cried out, “I can’t afford to take all of you!” The door slammed shut behind them.


End file.
